With the end of the pandemic looming, a small amount of my teaching has moved from virtual, online lessons back to in-person, socially-distanced lessons.
I knew in-person lessons would be a change (for the better), but even I was caught off-guard at how much better and easier it was.
Instead of feeling exhausted and drained at the end of a few lessons, I actually felt a bit more energized at the end of teaching. At least some of this feeling is likely optimism that we have passed the worst of this pandemic and things are on the way back to “normal”, but the physical and mental effects of the change were noticeable. I definitely had (and probably still have) a moderate case of Zoom fatigue, even though I didn’t realize it until I was able to experience something different.
I’m not going to be giving up on online teaching completely, though. I have quite a few students located in different states that I’ve been teaching online before the pandemic even began, and they have seemed happy with their online instruction. It may help that most of them are adult students, and they are either coming back to the horn after some time off or they are more advanced students and able to understand higher-level concepts much easier than younger students.
For those still trapped in virtual meetings or lessons, this article does a good job of explaining a bit more about Zoom fatigue, including some of the scientific reasons causing it and what you can do about them. Whatever you do, make sure you spend these last few months taking care of your mental and physical health.
