Zoom Teaching Flashbacks I’m Still Recovering From
There are certain phrases that still trigger a physiological response in me — “You’re on mute,” “Can everyone see my screen?” and the haunting silence of twenty-five black rectangles where human faces used to be. Zoom teaching was not simply online instruction; it was an anthropological experiment in attention, resilience, technological improvisation, and the limits of eye contact through pixelated grids. When the classroom dissolved into individual bedrooms, kitchen tables, and suspiciously angled ceiling views, teaching did not stop — it mutated. We were no longer managing desks and whispered side conversations; we were moderating bandwidth, microphones, siblings in the background, and the unsettling intimacy of seeing into each other’s domestic spaces. The first shock was visual. In a physical classroom, you read posture, whispers, fidgeting, micro-expressions — you feel the room’s pulse. On Zoom, the room had no pulse, just icons. Some students kept cameras on, carefully cura...
