From “Presential” Teacher to “Online” Teacher: Teachers’ Imental Health I N Times of Covid-19. Mexican Experience

In this paper, the results of a pedagogical investigation have been presented, the objective of which was to identify the causes of teachers’ stress in the times of COVID-19 due to the need to teach their classes with the support of digital media and the ways to reduce this agitation studying the Mexican experience. The carried-out study showed that teachers who work in the classroom mode are not prepared to work as online moderators. Precisely this fact generates the emotional state of stress and anguish in the teachers. Taking into account the main features of the teaching work activities that imply a high concentration and tension, as well as the concern for the health of their relatives and their own in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, the concern about the need to teach their classes using mediation technologies, it becomes that “drop that spills the water”: the teacher's mental health is shaken, his/her nervousness causes physical discomfort of different kinds. This emotional state of stress and anguish in teachers is aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This stress can be reduced if the teacher internalizes the basic precepts of e-moderating and if, while training them in the use of ICT, teaching is organized in a way that complies with andragogic precepts and foresees the collateral risks implied by technological academic “literacy” of the teacher of face-to-face system. On the other hand, the authors establish that it is vital to foresee the collateral risks implied by the academic and technological “literacy” of the classroom teacher: the possible waste of their very inestimable “traditional” skills: reading, handwritten notes and the written expression of their position before what is read, confidence in confiscated sources, capacity for critical analysis, reflection, imagination, creativity, among many others.