Carolina K-12, a program based in the College of Arts and Sciences, hosted a summer retreat for educators from around the state, immersing them in the history and culture of Beaufort, Harkers Island and Cape Lookout.
Karen Willis Amspacher gestured at a buffet table laden with homemade food — squash and crab casseroles, shrimp and rice, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, macaroni and cheese, peach and blueberry cobblers, iced tea and lemonade.
“I want to welcome you to the end of the road,” said Amspacher, executive director of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center, in describing the museum’s remote location on Harkers Island, North Carolina. She addressed 42 hungry K-12 teachers awaiting lunch, made by community members, after their busy morning exploring Cape Lookout, the southernmost point of the Outer Banks.
“What do I hope you take away from today? I hope you know that you’ve been to a place where people still love their home. It’s not just a national park or a real estate investment or a Sunday afternoon drive. This is a place where our people have lived for a long, long time, and they are shaped by it,” said Amspacher, who is descended from Shackleford Banks fishermen and boatbuilders in Carteret County’s Down East region. She shared an introduction with the teachers from Island Born and Bred, a collection of stories and recipes from Harkers Island cooks.
“I’ve asked every one of you that I’ve met, where are you from?” Amspacher continued. “Because for us, that’s what matters. We are proud to share that with you as teachers because community is everything — your school community, your classroom community. And if your children do not feel like they are part of a community, create one.”
Creating community was a common thread woven throughout the all-expenses-paid William Friday Teachers Retreat, hosted June 23-25 by UNC-Chapel Hill’s Carolina K-12 program, the nonprofit North Caroliniana Society and the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ “Learning Happens Here” initiative. This year’s retreat honored UNC alumnus Todd Miller, founder of the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which has worked for 40 years to protect the state’s coastal communities.
Carolina K-12 is a unique program in Carolina Public Humanities in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences. It extends the resources of the University to the state’s K-12 educators through professional development programs, an online database of innovative lesson plans and interactive pedagogical training.
To date, Carolina K-12 retreats have reached 381 teachers in 81 counties. This was the 11th Friday retreat, and the second time Beaufort was the host. Previous retreats have brought teachers to Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, Edenton and Asheville. Next year’s retreat will return to the western part of the state.
Over the course of three days, teachers sang freedom songs in a session led by UNC alumna and vocalist Mary D. Williams, rode a double-decker bus on a historical journey through downtown Beaufort, touched whale bones at the Bonehenge Whale Center, learned about Blackbeard’s shipwreck via archaeological exhibits at the North Carolina Maritime Museum, explored Cape Lookout National Seashore by flatbed truck and painted wooden duck heads in a workshop led by waterfowl decoy carvers.
“There are benefits in immersing teachers in a place — being in person and able to engage with your peers,” said Paul Bonnici, special projects coordinator for Carolina K-12 and Carolina Public Humanities at UNC and an organizer of the retreat. “You can share the experience in a way you cannot on Zoom. You don’t build that collegiality and community online in the same way.”
“Place-based learning” on Core Sound
Earlier that morning, after fortifying themselves with a grab-and-go breakfast, teachers boarded the Island Express Ferry for a 25-minute journey to South Core Banks and the Cape Lookout National Seashore.
On the windy, bouncy ride across Back Sound waters, they passed wild horses grazing on Shackleford Banks, a pristine barrier island once occupied by whaling and fishing communities. The captain said 119 horses live on the island.
As the ferry neared its destination, Cape Lookout Lighthouse appeared in the distance with its signature black diamond “daymark” pattern.
After disembarking, the teachers split into rotating groups for activities led by Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center staff and volunteers. One group waded into the water looking for salt marsh plants and animals. Another group enjoyed an art and creative writing activity. A third hopped aboard a beach shuttle for a two-mile trip across the sand to Cape Lookout Village Historic District, the uninhabited remains of a former village, and to Cape Point, the tip of Cape Lookout.
“Going to Cape Point where two bodies of water meet and where the dirt and sand have stayed there [for generations] was amazing,” said Tyler Daughtry, a high school teacher from Johnston County who is also vice president of the North Carolina Council for Social Studies. “It’s one of the only places that is still protected from hotels and condos, and hopefully it will stay that way.”
As he walked along the shore, Daughtry stressed the value of “place-based learning.”
“Having a visual understanding allows for the relaying and sharing of information that is more powerful,” he said.
Lorraine Bynum, a first-grade teacher from Wayne County, sat on the boardwalk and spotted a ghost crab scrambling down the dunes. Museum education coordinator Catherine Norris captured the crab in a net so the educators could briefly study it, then set it free.
The Friends of Wayne County Public Education funded multiple slots for Wayne County teachers to attend the retreat. Bynum said she was “elated” to be there. She retired after 24 years of teaching, then returned to the classroom in February to replace a teacher who had left mid-year.
“I was apprehensive about returning to the classroom in the beginning, but now it’s been like I am home again,” she said. “The camaraderie with the teachers [at the retreat] has been nice. I have really enjoyed this.”
As the wind and saltwater sprayed her face on the ferry ride, Sherae Hagans, a K-6 teacher from Robeson County, said she felt like she was experiencing “true island living.” She enjoyed the art activity and was already thinking about how it could be translated to exploring the grounds of her own school.
“I was born and raised in North Carolina, but I have never been to the lighthouses, so being here today is wonderful,” said Hagans, who noted that she stresses the beauty and diversity of the state’s natural resources to her students.
A dual mission: education and appreciation
“I’m on my way to Canaan Land,” gospel singer Mary D. Williams belted in a powerful voice that bounced off the rafters of the marina building beside the Beaufort Hotel, where the teachers were staying. On day one of the retreat, Williams (B.A. American studies and history ’15, M.A. folklore ’19) led teachers in song, as she taught about the role of freedom songs from enslavement to the Civil Rights Movement. Music can unite people as they learn about difficult history, she said.
“Music has a powerful influence on developing community,” said Williams, who teaches at Duke University and Wake Technical Community College.
Melissa Redden, a teacher at a Buncombe County charter school, said her school integrates the arts into teaching as much as possible.
“Mrs. Williams was absolutely phenomenal, and it reminds me how powerful music is as a teaching and learning tool and also just for community-building and calming people,” Redden said. “That has really stuck with me.”
That afternoon, teachers hopped aboard a red 1967 open-air, double-decker bus for tours of Bonehenge Whale Center, the North Carolina Maritime Museum and downtown Beaufort, one of the state’s oldest towns.
At Bonehenge, open only by reservation, teachers touched the jawbone of a whale that formed a giant arch at the center’s entrance. A plaque read: “The bones speak to us.” The research, education and marine conservation facility works closely with the North Carolina Marine Mammal Stranding Network to investigate calls about stranded, injured and dead sea mammals.
Director Keith Rittmaster held up a birthday party-sized mylar balloon that a young female whale had ingested, blocking the GI tract and likely killing her.
That story hit home for Ginnie Ipock, a middle school teacher from Craven County.
“I’ve said for so many years that I need to stop using plastics, and now I’m fully motivated after seeing the impact on these sea mammals,” she said. “I think giving our young folks an understanding of how important it is to care for our environment is good.”
Christie Norris, director of education for the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and the former director of Carolina K-12, said the Friday retreats have always had a dual goal of “education and appreciation.”
“There’s a really magical formula in giving teachers experiential content education, time to collaborate with other adults, pedagogical exploration and, throughout all of that, to remind them of the critical work that they do.”
Those two entities are also joining forces in the creation and management of the inaugural America 250 N.C. Freedom Fellows program — a six-month fellowship designed to deepen teachers’ scholarship and enhance their teaching of the state’s history during and after the American Revolution. It will give the inaugural fellows an opportunity for a long-term educational experience, complementing shorter-term professional development workshops.
“Happy, refreshed and rejuvenated teachers make for better classrooms, period,” Norris added. “We can’t expect them to carry the load and to do the work that they do with empty tanks. We want to fill their tanks.”
Teachers who experienced Down East culture and hospitality praised the efforts of university, state, local and nonprofit partners in glowing testimonials. The educators returned home with a large swag bag of resources for use in their classrooms, including Williams’ CD Blood Done Sign My Name, Amspacher’s book (co-authored with Barbara Garrity-Blake), Living at the Water’s Edge: A Heritage Guide to the Outer Banks Byway (UNC Press) and a children’s book for multilingual learners, Plott’s Tales and Trails: Aventuras with Carolina.
One teacher summed up her thanks in a post-retreat survey with the simple phrase: “Ya’ll rock.”
Story by Kim Spurr, photos by Jess Abel, College of Arts and Sciences