Karen Heesen
Karen Heesen has been teaching students who are blind or low vision at the Wisconsin School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (WSBVI) in Janesville how to read braille for 25 years. In that role, Karen has helped generations of students with vision loss connect with written language. Her efforts have not gone unnoticed; earlier this year, Karen was awarded the WMTV Crystal Apple Award in recognition of her years of inspiring students of all ages.
Karen has a long history with the school, having attended it herself throughout her school years. It was during her student years that she knew she wanted to return to the school as a teacher. “I saw all the great blind role models I had and felt they were great teachers, and I thought ‘maybe that’s something I would want to do,’” Karen says. “It had always been my dream to come back and teach at the school to make a difference for others in the same way those teachers did in my life.” Once her children were grown, she went to Beloit College, earned her degree, and started her career with WSBVI.
Today, Karen teaches braille, but she’s left her mark throughout the entire school. She’s taught everything from core classes for high schoolers to music and other electives for all grades. “My favorite part of teaching is the excitement when you start to see a student really acquire a skill,” Karen says. “They tend to be tentative and unsure when they start out, but watching them flourish over time is what it’s all about for me.”
Karen has been around the Council nearly her entire life. “The Council was a household word for us,” Karen says. “We knew it was a place where we could get help with advocacy or supplies or just an answer to a question.” When she enrolled in college, Karen received a Council scholarship to help pay for her studies. Later, Karen served multiple stints on the Council’s Board of Directors, spanning from the 1990s all the way into the 2020s.
Karen says she isn’t planning on leaving the school any time soon. She enjoys watching the school evolve over time. The mission is still the same, she says, but as more students with vision loss stay in their home school districts instead of going to Janesville, they’ve had to make a few adjustments. Students who stay in their home district may not have the time to learn all the independent living skills they need to thrive after graduation, so WSBVI invites students to take short courses at the school to learn the skills they need to be successful adults. “We might not serve as many students directly at our campus as we once did, but we still reach over a thousand students throughout the state through things like consultations, summer programs, our library and other programs.”
