You wrote,
> I'm trying to find out if the work load of primary and high school
teachers
> is very different in different countries. In Hong Kong, I find the work
> load of school teachers pretty heavy; however, whenever I mention it to
> administrative people they tend to say it's like that everywhere and that
> Hong Kong teachers do not have a particularly bad lot. I'm not so
> convinced, so I'd like to do a quick survey. Could you write me the
> typical work load of a primary school and/or a high school teacher in your
> city/country? Below is an example:
>
> In HK:
> A high school teacher typically teaches about 5 lessons (each 40 minutes
> long) a day, 5 days a week. Usually a teacher teaches 3 or more classes,
> each has 38-43 students. The no. of subjects taught can vary from 2 to 5.
> The teacher's duties also include taking care of extra-curricular
> activities, talking to parents, doing individual counselling with students
> who have emotional or academic problems. Also, a language teacher has a
> heavy marking load (Ss are required by the school (a usual practice) to do
> weekly compositions and teachers' marking is also usually monitored by
> school administrative personnel.
> Teachers do not have any assistants; they do everything including
> photocopying worksheets and handouts, registering students' marks on mark
> sheets... etc.
I used to be a high school teacher in what used to be the Soviet Union. My
specialty was physics. My teaching load was very similar to what you
described except I taught only one subject. I was also responsible for one
specific classroom (children in Soviet classrooms were always together, they
all moved from one subject to another, and there was a teacher responsible
for each classroom "class leader" "klassnyi rukovoditel'"). We also had a
lot of mandatory non-professional meetings for all teachers such as
communist party meetings (which I always skipped and was punished).
I don't know US load for high school teachers.
Eugene