Alex Frederick Hill

It has been almost a decade since I have had the privilege on knowing Alex, but there was a time when I spent 8 hours a day, 5 days a week with him and 21 other beloved children. And over the course of my very first year as a teacher, in my first first classroom I got to know Alex, and to love and appreciate the little person that he was, and the adult he would one day become. The moments of life experienced during Grade 3 can perfectly encapsulate momentous development of a soul as they transition from a mushy brained baby, into a more defined individual with their own values, personality traits and interests in life beginning to take more concrete shape. I will be forever grateful that I got to know and love Alex during this wonderful moment in time. I have many memories of Alex from my time teaching him and afterwards, but here is a few that I think sum up the version of Alex that I hold in my heart. 1.Monday Mornings. Alex would often run into class on a Monday morning chattering excitedly about the adventures he had been on over the weekend. They often included stories of paddling up the river with his dad and contained elements of fantasy weaved through with accurate historical information around bow and arrows, siege tactics and defence protocols. The details of it all were usually lost on me, but I remember feeling such joy at hearing Alex share experiences that showed how deeply loved, valued and accepted he was by his family, who went along with his wild imagination and encouraged his interests, intelligence and curiosity. 2.The Class Fun Vibes Playlist. My 2017 Spotify Wrapped awards will forever hold the imprint of the class playlist that each child in the room added one selected song to. It contains, Shake it off by Taylor Swift, Moves by Jagger by Maroon 5 and Alex’s contribution, the 1961 Jerry Lee Lewis classic – Great Balls of Fire. I can confidently remember the look of bewilderment on the rest of the kids’ faces the first time it played while Alex broke out into larger-than-life dance moves singing at the top of his lungs. The class learned to appreciate it as a fun and upbeat interlude in the playlist that would send Alex into an enthusiastic and joyous dance he shared with them all. 3.Freewriting. The introduction of a freewrite book was provided for students practice the skills of coming up with a new story, or topic to explore in their writings. Often times the hardest part of writing is the start, but not for Alex and not for the reason you think. These books gave the kids a daily opportunity to explore their ideas creatively without the pressure of having to commit to a story line or idea and the books were entirely their own, never officially graded and the content was always FREE choice. So, while other kids had the beginnings of fantasy novels, journal entries, how to instruction guides, opinion pieces on why exactly we should make Monday Movies a regular occurrence in the class, Alex created a car sales magazine. Pages upon pages, of rows and rows, of car listings. Including tiny, detailed drawings of each available purchase, listing; make, model and KMs underneath each one. I am not exaggerating to say that it included hundreds of unique cars with unique details all recalled perfectly from his mind to be added to the page. I fail to remember if Alex ever wrote anything else in his free write book, or if the entire year was dedicated to this one project. I do remember asking him once if he was ever going to start on a different piece of writing in the book, he looked at me quizzically and replied simply “No.” It was a FREE write book after all. I do believe that I managed to maintain a spot on Alex’s ‘Favourite Teacher List’, and that is something I will never forget, just as Alex will always hold a spot on my ‘Favourite Student List’.