Daniel Vance, one of Seven Hills’s two upper school art teachers, has seen it all throughout his life and teaching career. From serving in the military to writing hundreds of pages of Dungeons and Dragons gameplay, Vance is always telling stories to students about his various life experiences.
Vance has lived in six different states throughout the course of his lifetime: South Dakota, Indiana, Colorado, Illinois, New York, and Ohio. Growing up in Colorado, Vance spent most of his time outside riding bikes, building forts, and playing sports with friends. “My friends and I would be a little cluster of kids on bikes, and we would go from house to house eating all the snacks,” Vance said. “If we weren’t running around outside, we were playing D&D,” a hobby Vance continues to enjoy today. “I’ve written over four hundred pages of D&D gameplay,” Vance said. “I love games like D&D because unlike video games, the possibilities are endless. That was really exciting for kids with big imaginations.” It was also during his childhood that he developed his love for art. “My dad is a potter. Some of my earliest memories were working with clay in his studio,” Vance said. “I made my own toys and started to see the potential of making stuff.”
Upon graduating high school, Vance served in the U.S. military for two years, what he considers to be the most adventurous thing he’s ever done. When reflecting on his years of service, Vance cited the time he cut down a tree with his rifle because it “was in the way of the target.”After his military service, Vance attended college at the University of South Dakota. However, his first degree was in history. “My dad wanted me to study something serious, so I chose history,” Vance said. “I had 30 hours in history. My minor was art, and I had 63 credit hours.”
When asked if he always wanted to be a teacher, Vance said that it was always in the back of his head because he got certified to teach history and many of his family members were teachers. Vance has worked at many different schools throughout his teaching career including high schools, colleges, and middle schools. When asked what the craziest thing that has occurred during his teaching career was, Vance said, “It’s probably the nun fight,” referring to a time when an eighth grader he taught got into a fist fight with a nun. This is only one of many exciting stories Vance has told about his career.
Vance is also known at Seven Hills for what he calls “Pancake Day,” where once a quarter, Vance makes pancakes for all his classes. When asked how this tradition began, he said, “This is important; it was Jason Knarr who is responsible for Pancake Day. When I joined the school, he said and I quote, ‘we do this all the time,’so I began to do it all the time.” Senior Gardner Follin, who spends lots of time in the art office working with Vance said, “Pancake Day is my favorite thing about Seven Hills.”
Vance teaches several art classes at Seven Hills, with sculpture being his favorite. Despite how many classes of his you take, he will never run out of stories and life lessons.
