VTVLC Teacher Profile
Hal Vance
Q: Can you tell us a little about your background?
A: I knew pretty early on in my life (after the disappointment of shadowing a veterinarian in 7th grade dashed my hopes for pursuing that career) that I wanted to be a teacher. For a while in high school, I went back and forth, debating whether I would pursue teaching math or English. By the end of my Junior year of high school, however, I had made up my mind. That was the year I met both my favorite English teacher Mrs. Skellie and Calculus. Between discovering the joy of Canterbury Tales and the terror of alpha-numeric formulae, English Language Arts were definitely calling me home.
I ended up attending a local community college in upstate New York to pursue my Associate’s Degree in Liberal Arts: Humanities and Social Services. Shortly after I earned my Associate’s Degree, I enrolled in the English Language Arts & Secondary Education programs at Green Mountain College, which is what brought me to Vermont.
Upon graduating from GMC, I took a few months to travel across the pond and visit South Africa before returning to set down roots in Vermont. My first job teaching was with a small, independent school for students with special needs, where I worked for five years. When I left that school, I worked for a social services provider in Chittenden County, but quickly realized that sitting behind a desk and pushing papers is nowhere near as close to my heart as working directly with students is. I ended up quickly coming back to education to teach students in a public school system in Franklin County, which in a winding path of events lead me straight to where I am today, working with VTVLC.
Q: What is your favorite thing about teaching for VTVLC?
A:It’s so hard to only highlight one favorite part of working with VTVLC. First and foremost, I truly love and appreciate my team of colleagues here. I’ve never worked with an organization that felt so supportive of one another through thick and thin as the staff here at VTVLC is. We truly are a learning community.
We also have such amazing students in our program, from all across the state. Getting to support our students not only in their academics, but also in creating an environment to cultivate very real social connections with their peers, both near and far, in a digital environment is nothing short of amazing. I have the opportunity to work with students on their reading, writing, and speaking & listening skills in our virtual classroom, and at the same time through some really fun opportunities such as our D&D Club and eSports team. And, even though we’re a fully remote, online program, it’s such a joy to be able to host in-person events to get our kids and families together in different locations across the state and see our students connect with each other and with their learning on so many different levels.
Q: What has been the highlight of your virtual classroom this year so far?
A: We have actually just recently begun one of my favorite classroom activities of the year as we turned our focus to fictional narrative writing. For this activity, I provide the beginning of a story, which we all read together. The story introduces a few characters and a curious conflict. Then it abruptly stops and each student gets to decide what happens next. It’s such a fun project for me as their teacher, as I get to sit in my own little multiverse and read the many different directions their stories take.
We also have such amazing students in our program, from all across the state. Getting to support our students not only in their academics, but also in creating an environment to cultivate very real social connections with their peers, both near and far, in a digital environment is nothing short of amazing.
Q: What is different about teaching for VTVLC than teaching elsewhere? How do you approach that difference?
Teaching in a fully remote program certainly has its own share of pros and cons, but I find the pros to heavily outweigh the cons. Our students tend to distract one another much less frequently than they might in an in-person setting. We are also able to meet individually and in small groups to provide direct, individually tailored instruction to our students than brick and mortar programs may be able to.
Q: What do you wish people knew about online learning or VTVLC’s full-time K-8 program?
I think one of the biggest misnomers about online education is that people assume participants end up being disconnected and socially left behind. But this really couldn’t be further from the truth. We really emphasize educating the whole person here at VTVLC, from our rigorous academic programming to our collaborative Inner Explorer mindfulness practice to our fun and social club and team gatherings.