Nebraska teacher named Braille Institute’s Teacher of the Year

Audrey Graves has worked with students who are blind or visually impaired for 20 years. Now, she’s being recognized for her work as the Teacher of the Year with the Braille Institute.

“It's a huge honor,” Graves said. “I'm just without words.”

Graves, who is currently the outreach specialist at the Nebraska Center for the Education of Children who are Blind or Visually Impaired in Nebraska City, works with students one-on-one in schools across Nebraska and in some nearby Iowa and Missouri districts. She said she teaches Braille instruction, using low-vision devices and growing independent living skills.

“You may go to a district and the student is the only one in their district who is blind or has low vision,” said Graves, who is not visually impaired herself. “You're either pulling a student from their classroom to work on very individualized instruction, or you're going into their classroom to help them access what they're trying to see.”

As part of her trip to Los Angeles to receive her award, she’ll be watching and even proctoring a round of the National Braille Challenge Finals. Students compete in various events, like spelling and proofreading to reading maps and charts, and at several skill levels, from beginner to varsity. The Braille Institute also has a competition called Cane Quest for students to show off their travel skills.

Graves said Braille expands what a student can learn.

“It opens their world to literacy, which opens them up to independence, and it just opens their world to everything to bring them to that next level,” Graves said. “It just brings so much to the value and the outlook to their lives.”

Anna Weber is one of Graves’ students. She is going to be a freshman in the fall at Rock Port High School in Missouri about 10 minutes from the Nebraska border. Weber nominated Graves for the national award because she said Graves is “perfect for what she does.”

“Audrey’s just a different teacher,” Weber said. “She gets me more than most other teachers.”

Weber added that it’s fun to work with Graves.

“We act like best friends, not like I’m a student,” Weber said. “We just act like it, like we joke around a lot. We have these songs that we made with Braille.”

Graves said her favorite part of the job is students like Anna.

“It's the students that bring me back every year — their energy, their enthusiasm, just their spark,” Graves said. “There's complex needs and challenges that they face, and there's so much that they can do. The world sometimes looks at our students and go, ‘Well, I don't know, and I don't know how they can learn this, or I don't know how they can do this.’ And our students are like, ‘Well, let me show you.’”

One of the challenges in her field is the shortage of teachers for students with visual impairments, Graves said. She encouraged anyone who may be interested in the field to reach out to the Nebraska Center for the Education of Children who are Blind or Visually Impaired.

“I'm a continuous learner, and this field you're learning every day, right alongside the students,” Graves said. “It's just a field that I have a lot of passion for. I think the field found me, and I just don't ever want to leave it.”