Creating personal connections with students is key to being a successful teacher for Alexander Keevil, Blue Ridge School’s 2022 recipient of the Golden Apple Award for teaching. Keevil has been a learning specialist in the School’s Fishburne Learning Center since 2019 and is now co-director of the Center. Next academic year he will also be assistant dean of faculty and academics. The Golden Apple Award annually recognizes outstanding private and public school teachers in the Charlottesville area.
Keevil says getting the award is gratifying: “This is my 13th year teaching. I’ve never gotten any kind of award during that time, so when I got that email … it was a surreal, strange feeling. No teachers go into the profession expecting any kind of recognition. It’s a kind gesture and it lets me know that I’m on the right path. It was definitely a nice surprise.”
Keevil connects with students in the FLC by being open with them about his own struggles with learning, his dyslexia, and his personal path to embracing and enjoying learning. It was not until late in high school that Keevil began connecting with school. Since then, he has gone on to complete college, earn a master’s degree, and is nearing completion of a doctorate in education. Because he has also been a graduate student while teaching at Blue Ridge, he can show his FLC students how he uses the skills he teaches them to achieve academic goals.
In addition to teaching, Keevil is an adult leader in Blue Ridge School’s theater program, an advisor, and a hall parent. He says responsibilities such as these give him additional ways to meaningfully connect with BRS students he does not teach in the FLC. He says, “All of my interactions with my advisees are really rewarding. I enjoy getting to take them off campus for random lunches or dinners and just talk the whole time. The level of comfort that they have with me and that I have with them helps make that work. The relationships with those guys is probably my favorite aspect of working here.”
Junior Hudson Miller of Annapolis, Maryland, is a student and advisee of Keevil. He says Keevil is a deserving recipient, “Around campus, he goes out of his way to make sure every student is having a good experience. In the FLC, he knows that each student learns differently and each one of them goes at a different pace and each one of them needs different support – and he caters to every need those students have. He is an incredibly caring and supportive teacher.”
Golden Apple recipients were presented with their awards during a ceremony at the Albemarle County School Board Office on May 3. They each also received a $500 grant.
