COST Program

		The COST program at the College of Education

The UK College of Education is a participant in a unique partnership – the Consortium for Overseas Student Teaching (COST). This association, comprised of fifteen schools of education across the country, was created to give aspiring teachers an opportunity to complete their student teaching requirement in another country.

For several decades, the UK College of Education’s Office of Field Experience has arranged for hundreds of students to fulfill their student teaching in locations as diverse as South America, Europe, and Australia. After working and living for a semester in one of these areas, students return to the United States with a broader perspective on their world and experiences that enhance the quality of their classroom teaching.

Organizers talk about how COST augments a teacher candidate’s ability to view education from a global perspective. The program promotes greater respect for classroom diversity and inspires education students to adopt multiple teaching styles that impact a greater number of students. But in personal conversations with COST participants, they often relate insights that go well beyond the intended goals of the program. Many interesting situations occurred that changed how they saw themselves as teachers.

Bridget Hummel was a COST participant in the spring of 2005. She completed her student teaching at Alexander Road High School in Port Elizabeth, South Africa while a graduate student in the Master’s with Initial Certification program at the College of Education.

In an interview just weeks after she returned home, Hummel shared some insights that grew out of her experiences in South Africa.

Admission to the Program

When Bridget Hummel enrolled as a freshman at UK, she expected to spend at least a semester studying in another country. Four years later, the northern Kentucky native had diligently completed a bachelor’s degree, but time had run out for study abroad. The pressure Bridget put on herself to complete her academic requirements on time had compromised her desire to attend a semester of college overseas.

“I was disappointed about that. Not that I wasn’t glad to have finished my bachelor’s degree, but college, to me, is about taking advantage of academic paths that challenge and change your views. I thought I’d missed out on a big part of that because I hadn’t gone anywhere else to study, even for a short time,” she explained.

Just before her undergraduate commencement at UK, however, a brochure about the COST program arrived in the mail.

“I was already enrolled in the MIC program and getting ready to start classes. That brochure came at the right time. It gave me a second chance.”

Hummel quickly contacted Julie Cleary, placement coordinator of the COST program at the UK College of Education, and was relieved to find she was not too late to apply. After completing the applications and following the required procedures to participate in the program, the last step in the process was the longest – waiting for word about where she would go.

Participants can request where they would like to be placed. When Hummel was considering the long list of possibilities, the one thing she wanted most was to visit a country she would likely not visit again.

“I could see myself in later years visiting England and possibly some other European countries. So I requested places that I thought would be harder for me to visit later on in life.”

Hummel got her wish. In November, the COST office informed her that she would travel to South Africa during the spring semester to teach high school history and geography. Her family, she admitted, experienced a moment of apprehension at the news she would be traveling so far from home. But it was a testament to their confidence and support that once they were certain Bridget was serious about her commitment that they ceased worrying and exhorted her not to waste this chance.

Port Elizabeth

Port Elizabeth is a beautiful city nestled along South Africa’s Indian Ocean coastline. It’s a popular tourist destination, especially for surfers attracted to its blue waters, choice waves, and long stretches of white sand beach.

Hummel describes Port Elizabeth’s downtown as being similar to metropolitan Cincinnati in terms of size. Its architecture is a blend of modern business offices and historic buildings that bear the unmistakable imprint of European colonization. Similarities with urban centers as she was used to them, however, ended with the downtown. The most striking contrast between Port Elizabeth and the northern Kentucky area where Hummel grew up was the virtual absence of suburban sprawl.

“I’m used to strip malls and suburbs that spread out for dozens of miles outside of downtown Cincinnati and Lexington. Port Elizabeth has suburbs but they are sparse compared to what I grew up with,” Hummel explained.

If someone only visited Port Elizabeth and never ventured outside the city’s boundaries, they might be tempted to conclude that the country, in general, was economically prosperous. Outside the city, and in many parts of the country, poverty still exists. The government is working to remedy the situation but progress is slow.

“The teachers I worked with and the family that hosted me all said that conditions have improved since apartheid ended. It is just that the damage that such a system inflicts takes a very long time to heal. The school where I taught admitted as many students from the nearby townships as they could. The only comment I can really make is that during my time there I always had a sense that there was hope.”

This feeling she described was especially acute with the high school students she taught.

Teaching at Alexander Road High School

Being an American was something of a novelty the first few weeks of her teaching. Bridget’s students asked if she knew movie stars or world-renowned pop musicians and seemed somewhat skeptical when she told them she didn’t. However, she was surprised to discover that being a Kentucky native further enhanced her standing among students and teachers. Without hesitation, many sang the praises of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“I was amazed how popular Kentucky Fried Chicken was over there,” Hummel joked.

Alexander Road High School is one of South Africa’s 32,000 state schools serving the region’s largest population centers. The high school itself was about the same as any suburban high school with which she was familiar in the United States. Some educational technology was not as readily available. The faculty shared three computers and relied on overhead projectors rather than computerized ones. Ultimately, though, the lack of technology had no effect on the fundamental methods of quality education, Hummel said. There was still team teaching and a sharing of ideas. In some ways, Hummel felt that she benefited from the lack of technological resources.

“I found myself early on thinking of alternative ways to present material to class. Fortunately, the education program was very planned out with different modules assigned to the various grade levels. The structured nature of the coursework was a big help to me.”

Hummel found that the most striking contrast between the world she was used to and the one she was in had little to do with the building or the students. Rather it was within the faculty themselves. Teaching overseas was the fulfillment of an aspiration Bridget Hummel had had since high school but it is not a path which many future teachers in the United States follow. She was surprised to discover that the majority of the faculty at Alexander Road spent a semester or more of their education outside the country. The teachers talked of it as if it were a natural aspect of their preparation as teachers.

“Global education was a concept the teachers embraced across the board. Even the students displayed a solid perception of the world around them. In a lot of ways, the teachers’ ability to appreciate diversity in their teaching was much more sophisticated than my own. That fact impressed me a great deal,” Hummel commented.

Perhaps it was because of the immediacy of the dissolution of apartheid that influenced them. The racial makeup of the high school was a mixture of white, black and colored, a term used in South Africa to identify students whose heritage originates from India and Pakistan. There was no doubt that embracing diversity was of critical importance to the changes ongoing in South Africa.

“There is a generation of children growing in South Africa’s schools whose personal knowledge of South African apartheid is as a subject of study in history class. They are among the first to grow up in racially diverse classrooms.”

There was so much to absorb and learn during her time in South Africa that four months went by too quickly, said Hummel. When Bridget Hummel first learned that she was heading to South Africa she thought it would be a place she would likely never visit again. But that was before living and teaching in Port Elizabeth. With planning and some good fortune, she said she hoped to return there.

For the moment, however, Hummel is preparing to start her career as a social studies teacher at Larry A. Ryle High School in Boone County. There is no doubt will incorporate what she learned in South Africa to her teaching in Kentucky. Hopefully, the students will depart with a trace of the same perspective she has been given.