US teacher asks students to 'pretend you are a black slave' in assignment

The assignment left some students uncomfortable and upset. Photo / 123rf

A high school teacher in Iowa in the US has been put "on leave" after asking students to "pretend you are a black slave" for a school assignment.

The teacher, whose name was not released, assigned the Iowa City school district online learning programme to different schools, which has since been removed, Iowa City Press-Citizen reported.

The teacher asked students to write four sentences about what they would do if they were a slave who was freed.

The assignment asked students to "pretend you are a black slave".

"Think very, very carefully about what your life would be like as a slave in 1865," the assignment instructed.

"You can't read or write and you have never been off the plantation you work on. What would you do when you hear the news you are free? What factors would play into the decision you make?"

The teacher wrote in the assignment: "Also note that 4 million black slaves were freed in the south with the 13th Amendment was passed. THAT IS A LOT OF SLAVES!"

A statement from the district called the assignment "inappropriate" and said it "does not support and will not tolerate this type of instruction."

The assignment left some students uncomfortable and upset, including some black students in the class.

Ayesha Gamez, a 14-year-old African American student couldn't bring herself to complete the assignment which reportedly made her feel "so uncomfortable".

The teenager's mother Dibny Gamez, who said her daughter burst into tears when she told her about the assignment, said there are plenty of other ways to teach children about history that don't ask them to recall that their families were once enslaved.

"The way it is in 2020 right now, when it comes to race, you have to be very careful of what you can say and not say," she said.

Her mother commented that she has experienced racism at school and "felt singled out and discriminated against for her race" at school.

Students of colour make up up to 35 per cent of the student body at Liberty High School, according to the district's 2018-19 enrolment report.