A Christian publisher isn’t backing down from criticism over its vacation Bible school curriculum that asks students to role play as slaves and teaches that African people are “wild.”

The Group company published the learning materials called “Roar” this year, taking students on an “epic African adventure” — but many church leaders who’ve used it say the curriculum is filled with racial and cultural stereotypes, reported the Friend Atheist blog.

They complained about a role-playing exercise where some students pretended to be “hopeless” slaves while one of them played a “mean Egyptian guard” who unspooled a litany of demeaning comments to teach how “unfair” life was for the enslaved Israelites.

Students are also shown video of Maasai warriors jumping up and down, and are asked to imitate them so “their feet make the sound of a crazy stampede,” and they learn to produce clicks with their tongues to imitate African dialects.

The curriculum contains misspellings and refers to Africa as a country.

“You’ve been able to see some of the people in Africa and the amazingly wild things they do!” the material says.

Teachers […]