Zoom fatigue, the term coined to describe the exhaustion that comes with living life almost entirely online these days, is real, and you only have to search as far as a local school district to prove it.
“I need to be able to get out of bed and look forward to something so that I can provide that for my students, too.”
That’s what was going through Aurora Hills Middle School teacher Kyle Moreno’s head in the spring, as she was struggling with the abrupt shift to online learning after the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Colorado.
The realization that she would have to get up and teach through a screen every day for the foreseeable future weighed on her, and she realized that she needed to try and change her mindset so that she could project a sense of positivity for her students. It wasn’t always easy.
The challenges of remote learning have been hard on students, and it hasn’t been easy for teachers either. Not seeing students in person and having to plan lessons entirely online have been difficult, and teachers with children of their own have had to deal with the challenge of how to teach their own kids while dealing with a full classroom.
Moreno has taught at Aurora Public Schools for 13 years, first as a special education teacher and currently as a literacy teacher, where she works with sixth graders who have a wide range of reading levels and English language proficiency. When the school first went remote, Moreno said there was a sense of shock among teachers. Some thought that the school would go on break for two weeks and then return to in-person learning. As things progressed, it became clear that was not the case.
All told, APS has been almost entirely remote since the beginning of the pandemic, save for a brief window of time in October when students returned to classrooms before being removed again when COVID-19 cases in Adams and Arapahoe County began to spike. The district is currently scheduled to be remote through the end of the year; whether students can return in-person next semester will depend on what COVID-19 cases look like in late December.
As much as anything else, the sense of uncertainty was a big stressor for teachers, Moreno said, who by nature are a preparation-minded bunch. She spent the summer learning new technology platforms and working to prepare for all of the possible scenarios of what school might look like in the fall (in-person, hybrid, or remote).
“There was no summer vacation for most of us,” she said.
The chosen selection, remote learning, is difficult to plan. Moreno says she puts five or six hours of work into a one-hour online lesson. Even then, there are people who have the assumption that teachers wanted online school to continue because it was ‘easy’ for them.
“I work until I go to bed and as soon as I wake up in the morning I’m working,” Moreno said.
Connecting with students entirely over a screen is also much more difficult.
“How do you develop a relationship with an icon that looks like a wrestler?” she asked. Keeping students’ attention is also a struggle, as her literacy lessons do battle with Fortnite and all the other distractions the internet has to offer.
Along with the actual challenges of teaching, the bombardment of public opinion about how schools should be run is something Moreno has had to tune out for the sake of her own mental health.
“There’s certain things I’m reading, one minute we’re heroes and the next minute we’re villains,” Moreno said. “I think some people perceived it as we didn’t want to go into schools, which is not true. If we had a choice, we’d be in school teaching.”
Ultimately, working with students directly is why Moreno became a teacher in the first place, and it’s what she’s most looking forward to getting back once the pandemic is over.
During the week that APS returned to hybrid learning, just being able to see her students for that brief window of time reminded her of why she signed up to be a teacher, she said.
“It encouraged me,” Moreno said. “You can get through this.”
On Edge is a cooperative effort between Sentinel Colorado and The Colorado News Collaborative. There are more than 15 On Edge stories in the special report. Click here to see more reporting.
Whatever you’re going through, crisis counselors and professionally trained peer specialists are available to help. Call Colorado Crisis Service’s hotline at 1-844-493-TALK(8255). There is no wrong reason to reach out.
Reporter Carina Julig can be reached at cjulig@SentinelColorado.com.
