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In the News: Teacher of Year focuses on students
Earl Fouch is a people person, which makes him well suited for his chosen career. He uses his people skills everyday as a teacher to get to know his students and their parents with the hope of getting the most out of them academically.
“My favorite thing about being a teacher is the relationships with people,” Fouch said. “I get to spend a lot of time with people and use that time establishing relationships that last a lifetime.”
It is that mentality that earned Fouch the title of Teacher of the Year at Hart County Middle School. He was voted to the position by his colleagues at the school.
The relationships Fouch builds do indeed last a lifetime. He said he has often been approached by students after they graduate, go to college and enter the workforce who say they remember his class.
“Several students have reached out to me after high school detailing conversations and actions we’ve had that changed their direction in life,” Fouch said. “That’s when I know I am a teacher.”
The idea to become a teacher was planted at a young age. Fouch, who played football at the University of Georgia, comes from a family of teachers and said he saw firsthand the impact teachers can have on young lives. Now in his 20th year in the classroom, the Hart County native said he is happy to be able to have that impact himself.
One teacher in particular had that very same impact on Fouch when he was young.
“I was blessed to have Harold Fleming as a teacher,” he said. “I loved his class and hope to make my students feel the way he made me feel.”
Fouch’s math classes at the middle school offer him the opportunity to help his students learn, which is rewarding, he said.
“There have been lots of moments when students understand new academic concepts that make proud to be a teacher,” Fouch said.
Caring about the students is the best route to ensuring academic success, he said.
“The best advice I’ve been given is to build relationships before teaching academics,” Fouch said. “Students don’t care what I’m teaching until they first know I care.”
It is that interest that propels students to academic success, which is what he often tells first-year teachers.
“Don’t expect to be perfect and focus on the students instead of the latest strategy or research-based intervention,” Fouch said. “Understand that students are inspired to learn by your interest in them.”
When he is not at school, Fouch can often be found outside, fishing, playing golf or smoking some meat on the grill. He can also be found spending quality time with his wife Bernadette and his two boys, Trez,14, and Bryce, 10.
In 10 years Fouch said he plans to be in his final year of teaching and getting ready to travel the world in retirement. Among those trips will be one to Hawaii.
“I’d love to feel the consistent low 80s day temperatures and low 70s night temperatures with the low humidity,” Fouch said.
He will also spend plenty of time at home on Lake Hartwell, he said.
“My favorite part of Hart County is the lake,” Fouch said. “I have a lot of great memories fishing, swimming and camping there. I love sharing those memories with my boys.”