The author makes the point that education is a secondary or at least not the only major function of school, and that a big part of it is providing a warm, safe

The author makes the point that education is a secondary or at least not the only major function of school, and that a big part of it is providing a warm, safe environment for kids to spend their days (I'd also add it's a place to learn to socialize, and also to be a part of the system (for better or worse)) The actual subject matter learning is pretty unimportant, and zoom in no way replaces the experience. I believe that this idea also holds for in-person vs remote work in most cases. People's jobs have some component that is "the work they do", but then a whole bunch of other social and collaborative components that come from spending the day together It's easy to pretend you can throw all that away and people can just do the work they are responsible for at home, and surprisingly, most people only take a few hours a day to get their work done. But that's because that "work" was not really their job full job, it was also coming in to a workplace and being part of a group.