Bronx Teacher Steps On Students' Backs In Slavery Lesson: Report

THE BRONX, NY — A white teacher at a Bronx middle school horrified a class when she stepped on black students' backs during a lesson about slavery, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.

During multiple seventh-grade social studies lessons at Middle School 118 about two weeks ago, Patricia Cummings told black students to lie on the floor to illustrate the Middle Passage, the overseas route that transported kidnapped slaves from Africa to America, two students told the Daily News.

Cummings reportedly asked the students, "You see how it was to be a slave?" When one girl on the floor jokingly said she felt fine, Cummings stepped on her back and said "How does it feel? See how it feels to be a slave?"

"She was measuring the length and width to show how little space slaves had in the ship. It was strange," one student told the Daily News.

Located in the Tremont neighborhood, Middle School 118 has a student body that's 81 percent black and Hispanic and less than 3 percent white. Cummings, who reportedly makes $68,934 a year, has been reassigned away from students, a Department of Education spokeswoman told the Daily News.

"While the investigation has not been completed, these are deeply disturbing allegations, and the alleged behavior has no place in our schools or in society," DOE spokeswoman Toya Holness told the paper.

Cummings refused to discuss the incident with a Daily News reporter. "Excuse me, I’m not talking to anyone, no," she reportedly said when approached after school Thursday.

Read the full Daily News story here.

(Lead image: Middle School 118 is pictured in the Bronx. Image from Google Maps)