A Water Fight in the Parc de Paris

One of my school's recent field trips took us to Seoul's Parc de Paris, a park celebrating the longstanding friendship and cooperation between Korea and France. Rather than take the children there to teach them about French culture or about Korea's international relations, our school decided to hold a water fight there. This was fine by me, as the weather has been sweltering hot lately and sometimes the more educational field trips can get a little dull (I'm looking at you, Yangcheon Traffic School).

This sign greets you as you enter the park, which is located near Omokgyo Station.

To be honest, there weren't many things that seemed to bear any relation to France, apart from these.

Roxie-Teacher poses with some of our kids before we start the water fight.

Guns at the ready.

Aicha-Teacher, Grace-Teacher and Roxie-Teacher couldn't be happier to have an opportunity to shoot their students.

I'd like to say I went easy on them, being kids and all. But the truth is I didn't hold back one bit.

You can always divert children's attentions with bubbles.

After the fight they got to blow some bubbles of their own.

At the end, the kids were instructed to pelt water balloons at this unfortunate PE teacher: rather symbolic of the average student-teacher classroom dynamic in our hagwon.

I won't lie. Shooting my kids was a blast. I don't even remember the last time I had a water fight, so I'd kind of forgot how fun they can be. It's especially great watching that kid who's been tormenting you for the last eight months squirm as you butcher him mercilessly with cold water. Why can't more field trips involve such simple, pleasant things?