Korean Fire Drill.

Well, we had a fire drill the other day at school. Now many of you who are products of the public education system in the United States, and well any education system in the United States are well aware of the countless fire drills. Well, here in Korea, its is completely different. I recently found some pictures that another teacher took so I'm going to post them to show just exactly what I'm talking about.

Now, in the U.S. a fire drill is an evacuation and assembly drill. The goal is to empty the campus of every student in a quick and most importantly an orderly fashion. Here, half the school didn't participate, and the other half was already outside when the drill technically started. Another point of difference I should mention is that, a fire drill here, really just means a fire show. For starters, the fire truck was there shooting water into the air to impress the students. Another point of departure was the lighting of, and use of a smoke canister that some of the students had to walk by.

Well, if that wasn't enough, for those pyros of you in my small but utterly devoted readership they decided to light cardboard boxes on fire. Then have a few of the teachers take turns hitting it with fire extinguishers. When the teachers failed to get the boxes out, the firemen who previously were busy shooting water in the air decided to take out the flames with some precision water shots.

If that isn't enough, they also do a casualty evacuation drill for the teachers during this time. This involves many different drills. One of which involves the movement of an injured student. While this may be good practice, it was more ridiculous then you'd think. First, they moved him in a wheel barrow. They then transferred him to a legitimate hard board stretcher where he was immobilized. After the immobilization they transferred him into an ambulance and off they drove.

I sit here and wonder about the image these drills give my students about fires. For many of them these drills are a time where they get to sit and laugh about what the teachers are doing. For others it's just a cool show to watch because there are flames and large geysers of water being shot out of hoses. Either way, I feel that if there was a real fire in this school, the students would not know how to evacuate safely, and I am honestly worried that in the case of a fire several students would be injured or worse because it would be utter chaos.