By Eric Johnson

HARKERS ISLAND (July 3, 2024) – North Carolina is one of the fastest-growing states in the country, and that’s been true for a while now.

Since 2020, we’ve attracted newcomers at the rate of about 99,000 a year — the equivalent of adding an Asheville every year, according to the number crunchers at Carolina Demography. 

One result of all that in-migration is that about half the adults in the Old North State arrived from elsewhere. That pace of change makes for a fascinating civic challenge. If you care about North Carolina as a place with a vibrant sense of history, personality, and culture, you’ve got to imbue new arrivals with a Tar Heel sensibility.

You’ve got to make ‘em love the place, quirks and all. 

Strengthening public education is a great way to get started. Last week, I tagged along for the annual William Friday Teachers Retreat, sponsored by the North Caroliniana Society, Carolina Public Humanities, and the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

More than 40 teachers from across the state — including quite a few who moved to North Carolina as adults — spent three days visiting Beaufort, Harkers Island, and Cape Lookout. They met local historians and museum directors, toured historic sites, and rode along in the back of Park Service trucks while Down East older-timers talked about the ecology and traditions of the Core Banks.

“Try to imagine what it was like, living out here all year ‘round,” said Chris Yeoman, a former school principal and 6th-generation Harkers Islander, sharing family lore as a pickup full of teachers navigated the sandy tracks around Cape Lookout. “No internet, no air conditioning — people made the best of what they had.”

At the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center, director Karen Willis Armspacher and her staff shared a home-cooked meal with all of the teachers — squash casserole, crab casserole, shrimp and rice, steamed cabbage, peach cobbler — and reflected on how much the region has changed.

“You’ve been to a place where people still love their home, love where they’re from and who they come from,” Armspacher said. “Community is everything.”

TEACHERS PLAY an enormous role in building and passing along that sense of community.

Having more educators who appreciate North Carolina history and culture is crucial to vesting students in the civic life of the state, which is why the North Caroliniana Society started sponsoring these annual retreats in 2016. 

“Educators don’t normally get this kind of in-depth professional development,” explained Christie Norris, who organized the retreats through Carolina Public Humanities and just started a new role with NCDNCR. “This gives them a great experience and gets them connected with university scholars, with local experts, and with public cultural sites all over North Carolina.”

Norris, a former middle school teacher, believes that students benefit when teachers connect their curriculum to local history and culture.

Her retreat agenda included an expert on the state’s Native communities, a professor from East Carolina University who shared some of NC mysteries being unearthed through archeological research, and vocalist and scholar Mary D. Williams, who performed African-American spirituals and explained the role music played from the time of slavery through the state’s Civil Rights Movement. 

Listening along were social studies teachers, librarians, language arts teachers, and special education coordinators all the way from Transylvania County in the west to Pasquotank County in the east.

Having all of those educators in one room emphasized the diversity and regional differences that still exist in a state as vast as North Carolina. Most of them had never visited Cape Lookout or spent time hearing about the state’s rich maritime history, and they relished the chance to experience it firsthand.

THE HOPE is that teachers will return home with fresh ideas for tapping into cultural resources outside the classroom, giving their students a deeper sense of connection to North Carolina.

“It brought the magic of all parts of NC alive for me as an educator!” wrote Keri Hemrick, a high school teacher from Watauga County who moved to North Carolina three years ago. “This retreat has sparked so much interest and new ideas for me to explore as an educator and as a parent. The love for NC History will be rich for both my family and my students!”

Melissa Redden, a reading instructor from Buncombe County, wrote about discovering coastal culture in an in-depth way, and finding a wealth of new resources she can use in the classroom.

“I moved to North Carolina after college, so I didn’t know much coastal history at all prior to the event,” she reflected. “I value the experience to learn more about Down East, which I knew very little about and now have fresh inspiration to integrate this history at all grade levels.”

“IF YOU DON’T LOVE this environment, it’s hard to worry about protecting it,” explained Todd Miller, the former director of the NC Coastal Federation, who spoke with the teachers. “The goal going forward is to continue loving it without loving it to death.”

He was talking about the state’s fast-developing coastline, but it’s a sentiment that applies to all of North Carolina.

Being a dynamic place is a good thing, and you’d much rather have the challenges of rapid growth than the miseries of slow decline. But preserving the beauty, the history, and the regional subcultures of our state will require a great deal of love and devotion as we continue to welcome new Tar Heels and educate their children.

That’s what great teachers bring — love and devotion to a place and its people, whether they’re deep-rooted or newly arrived. It’s what great civic institutions try to build — a Tar Heel identity strong enough to endure and broad enough to adapt. 

“Our teachers care so much about this state,” Norris said. “This is our way of showing how much we care about them, too.”

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Eric Johnson works for the UNC System and serves on the board of the North Caroliniana Society and the advisory board of Carolina Public Humanities.