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.
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An aside:
It's difficult to generalize whether one of schooling's aims is to produce
success or failure. But in the Hong Kong context, it's becoming
increasingly clear that schooling is doing social reproduction and
stratification, producing a small successful middle class of
Chinese-English bilingual elite on the one hand, and a majority working
class of more or less monolingual Catonese labor on the other (and who
typically experience academic failures at school). The sense of
frustration can be reflected in some of the local Cantonese movies, which
typically mock the bilingual elite and celebrate the school failure who
nonetheless becomes successful, rich and powerful (usually through triad
society activities plus a lot of luck, e.g., in gambling).
Such a complex issue. Who are we (part of the comfortable bilingual elite)
to comment on such issues? Yet, there somehow must be something that we
can do to change things a bit towards more social justice and opportunities
for all, not just the elite. What do you think?
Angel
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Angel Lin, Dept of English, City University of Hong Kong
Email: enangel who-is-at cityu.edu.hk