Terrence Foushee - On maintaining boundaries (clip)

Kathryn Wall (KW): You mentioned that a few of the teachers had that combination of being like loving and nurturing on one side, and a little more stern and strict on the other side. What do you think that does for kids in the classroom?

Terrence Foushee (TF): So, I think interestingly enough I just had this conversation with my brother, is especially working with youth, is that we need to know boundaries, and a teacher relationship, even though, and my dad says this all the time, is a teacher can be friendly but a teacher is not your friend. Because the goal of the teacher, especially as far as helping you reach your potential, a friend, not to say that they wouldn’t do it, but a teacher and a great teacher will always put focusing on your potential and trying to help you meet that more so than being your friend or making you feel comfortable with the teacher, that they can put you in uncomfortable spaces because they’re more focused on the goal and helping you reach your potential, and when we’re talking about great teachers it’s not about making sure that you pass the test, do something that reflects well on them, it’s more about how can I help you get to where you need to go. And I think that those firm teachers made sure that that was always the main focus on how they taught, and we could have fun moments, we could joke around, but once the joking would get to the point where it would stop me from being productive is where they would draw the line and I think that’s something that I needed. And part of the conversation that I had with my brother, is that we were able to kind of name the people, the women that were that for us, and the reason why I thought about it, and the reason why we had a conversation about it is because…