A is for Apple, B is for best, V is for Vance

When he was just 17, Vance Carruth decided he wanted to be a teacher.

After becoming a counselor at a church camp, the minister’s son found he loved working with children. Carruth was not an exemplary student in his youth, and he thought he could bring a creative style of teaching to those who learned the way he did.

“I try to make learning fun,” Carruth said. “I was bored in school.”

For the past 25 years, Carruth ? everyone calls him Mr. Vance ? has taught third grade at Agnes L. Smith Elementary School. Now he’s retiring, and students past and present are sorry to see him go.

His teaching philosophy goes beyond the books to fun and games, which he said helps his student learn happily.

“He’s the best teacher ever,” said third-grade student Kurt Ackerman. “He shouldn’t retire.”

Kurt, 9, and his peers share this sentiment, with almost every child in his class jumping at the chance to sing his praises. Even students who aren’t Carruth’s pupils get to hear about how he runs his classroom.

“I tell my friend all the time how much fun this class is,” said Jaeonna Bolin, 8, a Carruth student.

One of the highlights for his students are the 30-year-old Apple IIE computers that line the back wall of the classroom. More than 10 years ago, Carruth moved into a new classroom where the old machines were stored. Carruth told school administrators not to get rid of the technological dinosaurs. Instead, he networked all the computers, and there are now about 500 educational games on them. Carruth teaches the students how to play games that coincide with his lessons of the day.

Carruth is dedicated to his students ? some of whom are children of students he taught during his tenure at Smith Elementary.

“I’ve taught for 39 years of my life, 25 years here at Smith, and I have several kids of kids,” Carruth said.

Longtime Huntington Beach resident Amber Scott, 33, was a student of Carruth’s at Smith in the early 1980s.

“He made class really fun,” Scott said. “He wrote songs and tied it into the curriculum and made it fun. You really didn’t feel like you were learning out of a textbook or something boring.”

Twenty years later, Scott was bringing her son Dane to Smith School. Last year, Dane had Carruth as his third-grade teacher and loved every minute, she said.

“I was really hoping he would have Mr. Vance,” she said. “I thought that it would be so neat that he could have the same experiences that I had, and I knew he would love it.”

Amber Scott said her son loved going to school and never had a negative word to say about his class.

While many people cringed at the thought of tests in school, Carruth has found a way to engage his students with math quizzes that reward the children ? not just with a favorable grade, but to make it enjoyable. One of Carruth’s versions of math tests is the Monster Club and the Super Monster Club. By getting their multiplication tables correct on a timed test, the students are rewarded with candy and bragging rights. The students take turns sitting around a table with Carruth and vie for the chance to make it in the club.

Another club Carruth has put into action is the Super Surfers. Students can earn tokens from their teacher by getting all their assignments turned in on time and behaving during class.

“They [Super Surfers] get to go do everything first: line-up, go to recess,” said Carruth’s third-grade student Devin Lahtinen. “And they get to watch a movie at lunch with their friends.”

As an educational bonus, Carruth rewards his weekly Super Surfers with a lunchtime movie ? an educational film ? that they can invite one friend from another class to watch with them.

“There are 30 students with a range of learning styles,” Carruth said. “There is no downtime in class. After they turn in their paperwork, they work on the computer, or another activity.”

What can look like a slightly chaotic classroom, with some students playing games on the computers, some finishing classwork and others doing different educational activities, is actually more of an independent working environment. The students are rewarded for finishing their work in a timely fashion, so they tend to do so, Carruth said.

“He treated you more like an equal and you knew what work you needed to do and you did it,” Amber Scott said.

Although Carruth said he’ll now have more time to spend with his granddaughters, he is sad to be leaving his classroom this June.

“It’s very depressing, actually,” Carruth said. “I’ll miss the kids most, without a doubt. The last day of school is already usually the most depressing day of the year, so I can’t imagine how this will be.”

Carruth will still be milling around the campus, working about 15 days per year for the Ocean View School District as part of its early retirement program.hbi.27-vance-CPhotoInfo5L1QAP6820060427iyawa3ncKENT TREPTOW / INDEPENDENT(LA)Vance Carruth, a teacher at Smith Elementary School, times his students as they test their multiplication skills during class on Tuesday. Carruth is retiring after 39 years of teaching, the last 25 spent at Huntington Beach’s Smith Elementary.