We'll All Burn to Death

I'd like to repost an entry by a man named Culturebook. He has another blog at http://culturebook.livejournal.com/ The mistakes are his own and I have no idea who he is. I just stumbled upon it and thought you might enjoy it.

"So I spent 12 years as a grade school student in America and just about 12 years as a teacher in Korea. And yesterday was the first time I witnessed an actual "fire drill" in a Korean public school.

My co-worker asked me, "do you have this kind of thing in America?" and I'm like "Fire drills? Of course we do." He's all "Really!" He's really surprised, like he couldn't believe that we actually do that. He's kind of a knob, he's an Engish teacher of 20 years studying for his PHd, yet his English is terrible. I taught him 2 words that day 'Fire Drill' and 'Evacuate'.

So I answer him, yeah schools in America have fire drills several times a year but they're done a little differently. He wants to know how, so I tell him. First, it's always a a surprise, that is, you'll be sitting in math class and then boom fire alarm goes off. The teacher quickly establishes order and makes the children walk single file.
"Single what?"
Single file?"
"What's that?"
"One at a time, in a row."
"Oh." (this guys gonna have a PHd in English literature in a few months)
I continue -- The kids walk in a single file line, the teacher at the rear, to the nearest exit and into the yard everyone goes, still in line, so the teacher can do a head count to make sure no one was left behind. The goal/lesson of a "fire drill" is that in case of a real fire, children should exit orderly, not panic and run.

Well in Korea, things are a little different. I had a break period and I saw my middle school kids milling about the hallway so I asked, "Hey, why aren't you in class?" They say, "Fire." I'm all "Fire?" And they're like "No, No No" and they explain in Korean what would probably translate into Fire drill, yet they're just hanging out in the hallway. Like, they know what's coming. Finally the alarm goes off and everybody just kind of ends up in the yard. Normally, everybody wears slippers but I saw that everybody was wearing shoes, as if, they had time to go and change. I was still wearing my slippers.

Outside there was a fire truck. Then all of a sudden smoke begins billowing out of the school. I'm thinking,
this isn't a drill, this is a real fire and then upon closer inspection I realize it's this chemical smoke coming out
of some smoke machine. I guess, the effect was, "If this were a real fire, this is how it might look.' Then two
teachers, not firemen, but the PE and the Science teacher, pickup up firehoses and began blasting water against
the side of the building. There was a woman teacher still inside and she quickly scrambled to shut the windows, to prevent them from drenching the inside of the building.

Many pictures were taken by one of the lackeys in Administration. Like this is going to be a documented event.

But wait, it gets better...

So the kids are all sitting or standing on the grass field and Fire marshall Bill begins his lecture on fire safety. Of course, no one is listening. And he's got this fire extinguisher, several of them actually, and this big metalwastecan full of wood that he pours kerosene into and lights up. Then he lets various students take the fire extingusher and put out the fire. Relight, extinguish...relight, extinguish. High and Middle school boys and girls armed with a fire extinguisher and putting out the fire. As if.

As if, quick orderly evacuation is meaningless. As if, in case of fire, some middle school girl or boy is expected
to grab the extinguisher and put out the fire. As if teacher are actually going to be manning the firehoses.
It's all very comical until you realize that in case of a real fire, I know my students are going to scream and push and bumrush that exit and little Suji who looked so cute firing the extinguisher is probably gonna get trampled and I seriously wonder if anybody in Korean public schools ever learns anything of practical value.

The entire "drill" was nothing more than some drama with lots of flair and zero substantive knowledge. Kind
of like my co-teacher having a PHd. in English literature."