They were glared, yelled and sworn at, but the teacher of a group of Waikato teenagers wore Ku Klux Klan hoods at school says it was all worthwhile.
The year 10 students at Tokoroa High School were challenged by their teacher Dean Tereu to come up with a "creative and non-traditional" way to enagage with their history studies.
"One of the girls had chosen the KKK as her topic. It started in class when one of them put a white piece of paper on her head and asked 'What does this look like?' and there were responses from out class, and then it just grew to 'What would happen if we walked around school like that?'"
No-one at the school, where 60 per cent of students are Maori and 20 per cent are of Pacific ethnicity, was warned about the stunt and Mr Tereu said the girls sparked a "very, very powerful reaction" as they made their way around the campus on Thursday.
"They got lots of very ugly looks, got a few very powerfully-worded comments from people. There were some swear words and one of our teachers was about to confront them.