Education: Communists' Calendar

A public-school teacher in a Communist country may not have to think very much, but that does not mean that life is any the less exhausting. Last week, in News from Behind the Iron Curtain, a new monthly publication of the National Committee for a Free Europe, an escaped Czech teacher told why. Sample week in his former life:

Monday. "I teach from 8 to 12 ... The afternoon is taken up with a meeting of the Revolutionary Trade Unions Group, which usually lasts till evening."

Tuesday. "I teach from 8 till 2 p.m. At 2 ... there is a meeting of local party organizations, and at 5, the Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship League . . . This lasts the whole evening."

Wednesday. "I teach from 8 to 1p.m. After lunch I report to the principal's office and receive detailed instructions on my outside activities for the next few days. They usually consist in working with the local or district National Committee on lists of agricultural quotas. Occasionally I make the rounds of the community to register livestock!"

Thursday. "Teach from 8 to 3 ... From 4 to 9 p.m. there is a District Teachers' Conference . . . The conference is spent debating the who's, where's and when's of long-term brigade work and whether the teacher in question should be sent to an agricultural brigade for the 'Battle of Grain' or a building brigade. It is at these meetings that teachers obtain their share of ration tickets for shoes, raincoats and briefcases . . ."

Friday. "Devoted to harvest work, weeding of sugar-beet fields and the like."

Saturday. "I teach from 8 to 12 ... At 1 p.m. the compulsory collection of waste materials starts . . . This lasts till evening, when the counting, weighing and reporting on collection results starts."

Sunday. "I prepare one of the numerous speeches which must be made ... in the neighboring communities. The afternoon is spent on a 'persuasion drive' among the peasants ... It is sometimes spent journeying from house to house collecting signatures for the 'Peace' campaign, and thus ends a typical week in the life of a public-school teacher."