{"id":6847,"date":"2000-10-01T15:49:00","date_gmt":"2000-10-01T19:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=6847"},"modified":"2024-06-24T17:47:56","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T21:47:56","slug":"ocracoke-island-teachers-explore-unique-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/ocracoke-island-teachers-explore-unique-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"OCRACOKE ISLAND: Teachers Explore Unique Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
While leading a group of teachers down a tree-lined back road on the Outer Banks barrier island of Ocracoke, Alton Ballance stops at a special spot that will be forever British.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leaning over a white picket fence surrounding the British Cemetery, Ballance points to four simple gravestones. Then he recounts his kinfolks’ tales of the victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“My relatives used to tell stories about hearing torpedoes go off, and the Coast Guard crew bringing in the bodies of these British soldiers,” says Ballance, author of Ocracokers. “The sailors’ bodies were washed up on the beach and buried by locals in simple coffins.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A torpedo from a German submarine killed the soldiers stationed on the trawler H.M.S. Bedfordshir<\/em>e on May 7, 1942. The soldiers were guarding the coast from deadly U-boats unleashed by Adolph Hitler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ballance says the influx of soldiers into Ocracoke during World War II gave the Outer Banks village “its first jolt into the modem world.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The war forever changed Ocracoke,” he says, pointing to a Union Jack flag over the tombstones. ”It put a new face on it. When I was a boy, there was an old man from Ocean City, Maryland, who visited my grandmother and called her ‘Ma.’ He had stayed in her home during the war and came back here every summer.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ballance’s war tale is just one piece of Ocracoke’s rich history that he passes on to 23 teachers from across the state. For four days, the Ocracoke native, teacher, author and historian serves as a guide for the “Island People, Island Culture” seminar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From a trek through a magical maritime forest to a tour of a striking white lighthouse, Ballance relates anecdotes and the colorful heritage of the island to the teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sponsored by the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT) in Cullowhee, the seminar is one of many offered by the nonprofit organization \u2014 from storytelling in North Carolina to electric vehicle technology. The seminar, which gives teachers an opportunity to renew their vitality for learning, is open to any North Carolina public school teacher employed for at least three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The program allows teachers to explore new interests and ideas,” says North Carolina Sea Grant marine education specialist Lundie Spence. “It treats teachers as professionals and rewards their past efforts. The Ocracoke seminar is a prize on top of a reward.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the fifth year of the Ocracoke seminar. “We chose Ocracoke as one site because it is a wonderful place to observe people’s values and roots,” says NCCAT director Mary Jo Utley. “It is a week of watching and learning about Ocracoke’s special culture and its wonderful school.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The seminar begins in the commons area at Ocracoke School that houses students from kindergarten through 12th grade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Built from white juniper, the room permeates with the sweet smell of cedar. Photos of old fishers peer down from one wall and smiling children from another. A mural of Blackbeard \u2014 the famed pirate who dropped anchor near the island \u2014 covers most of another wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “For this seminar, teachers get to meet people and hear stories about Ocracoke’s daily life,” says Ballance. “Until you sit at the table and laugh and hear stories from local people, you don’t get a full appreciation of the culture.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a tenth-generation Ocracoker, Ballance relates many personal experiences to the teachers – from carrying a dead body in a station wagon across the sound by ferry to teaching multiple subjects at a unique school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “When I came back to Ocracoke School in 1982 after teaching in Orange County, I didn’t realize how demanding the job would be,” he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ballance taught every subject on the high school level except math \u2014 including English, journalism, biology, health, physical education and yearbook \u2014 and coached the basketball team. Now, he teaches all high school English classes and journalism and serves as the assistant principal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He says the small school is “like one big family.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “In an environment where everyone knows everyone else, there is daily interaction among younger kids, older kids, teachers, family members and other people in the community,” Ballance writes in his book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later, Ballance introduces the teachers to Rudy Austin, a tall and burly retired Hatteras ferry captain who now shuttles tourists to nearby Portsmouth Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Austin weaves stories about the remoteness of the village that is accessible only by boat, ferry or airplane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “When I was a boy, they had only one nurse in the community,” he says. “I broke my shoulder at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Since there was no X-ray machine on the island, a guy flew me in a two-seated plane to Buxton and then called the Navy base to take me to Oregon Inlet. From there, the Coast Guard took me through the inlet, and then I went by ambulance to Norfolk. By the time I got to the hospital it was 6 am.”<\/p>\n\n\n\nFerry Boat Captain<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n