Throughout her 45 years in the education, Karen Ault never passed up an opportunity to learn.

“I have always taken advantage of any opportunity that came along,” she said.

As she prepares for retirement from Brownstown Central Middle School in May, Ault looks back at how far she has come and her impact on the corporation.

Born and raised in Freetown, Ault attended Freetown Elementary School before it consolidated with Brownstown. From fourth grade and above she attended Brownstown schools, even at the time when Brownstown Central High School held students in the seventh through 12th grade.

Ault said ever since she could remember she wanted to be a teacher.

“It ran in the family,” she said. “My grandfather, his brother and their sister were all teachers.”

At first she thought about becoming a first grade teacher, but soon realized she enjoyed being around older children.

“The middle school has always been my favorite area,” she said.

Ault went to Ball State University and graduated in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts in elementary education with a Spanish endorsement. By the time she finished school, it was a time in Indiana where teachers were plentiful.

“A lot of teachers were being laid off,” she said.

Brownstown at the time did not have many teaching positions open so, Ault started to look outside of the state. Desperate to teach and looking for opportunities, she accepted her first teaching position with a school corporation in Blackshear, Georgia, over the phone.

“Georgia was desperate for teachers and a lot of Indiana teachers were moving to find jobs,” she said. “I took the job over the phone on a Thursday and on Sunday I had my car packed heading to a job and a town I had never seen before.”

Before even knowing what she was going to teach, she made the trip down south and lived with a fellow teacher. For two years, she taught reading at the junior high level before returning to Indiana to pursue her master’s degree.

Ault received a Master of Science in Education from Indiana University in 1981, however, the market for teachers was still slim in Indiana. She made the trip back to Georgia and taught for another eight years from elementary to high school.

She described Blackshear as being similar to the small rural community of Brownstown, except the railroad tracks run right through the middle of town. During her time in Georgia she was welcomed by the community and families through her teaching.

“It was a really unique experience,” she said.

She remembers one of the first days of her teaching career in Georgia. A boy raised his hand and asked her to slow down while she was teaching, implying that she talked too fast. Another memory that has always stuck with her was when the principal couldn’t find her or the students because they were comfortably reading behind a bookcase.

When her father had a heart attack she moved back to Indiana and found a temporary full-time position as a high school Spanish teacher at Brownstown. With the current teacher on sabbatical and a license to teach Spanish, she once again took the opportunity.

“I never thought I would teach Spanish, but it was a unique experience,” she said. “I have always found it as a challenge when I was a student. I enjoyed learning about the culture and the history.”

Ault said learning Spanish gave her a lot of opportunities, especially when she was able to study for six weeks in both Spain and Mexico.

She spent a few years filling in for different classes at the middle school and high school before she was hired full-time at the middle school in 1991. She began to teach a variety of subjects at the sixth-grade level including science, social studies, fine arts and language arts.

“I worked a lot with the corporation as far as curriculum because I have taught almost all grade levels,” she said.

In 1999, Ault found herself in a new position in the library and added on a second master’s degree in library sciences in 2000.

“Teaching is always something I have enjoyed and through the library we have media and information literacy classes,” she said.

As technology developed, Ault made sure to stay on top of learning new programs and processes to help students and teachers.

“Technology has always been one of my strong interest areas and I have been heavily involved in learning it to help teachers implement it into their lessons,” she said.

Taking advantage of any program she came across, Ault attended a program in San Francisco called LearnZillion to learn about how math and language arts play into an online curriculum.

Over the years she has received many accolades such as outstanding media specialist. She was recognized as the Brownstown Teacher of the Year in 2017.

In her first couple years in the library position, Ault was able to receive a grant that re-automated the old system of the library catalog. In recent years, she also received a grant and started a robotics club that would soon go on to flourish.

“These group of sixth-graders were so into technology and three of them gave up their spring break to work on their robots,” she said. “I took them to competitions and one year I had six teams go to the state competition. I like to help support the kids and their interests.”

Ault said now three of those boys from the club are studying engineering at Purdue.

As her retirement draws near, Ault said she plans to still be involved with the school and will continue to look for new opportunities.

“My contract ends in May, but we have a new desk and carpet coming so I will probably still be here to move the books,” she said.

Brownstown Central Middle School Principal Doug McClure describes Ault as one of those educators that could be found in the classroom on the weekends.

“She does a lot of behind-the-scene logistics as we have moved into new technology,” he said. “She has continued to learn, study and adapt as well as having a wonderful mind for communication. It has been a pleasure for me to work with her.”

McClure said her wisdom of information that he was able to use is just one of many things he will dearly miss.

He said Ault especially showed her dedication during the fall of 2020, when COVID-19 was still a concern as students returned to school.

McClure said there were a handful of students whose parents were not comfortable returning their child to school, so Ault took the opportunity to provide online instruction for those kids the entire school year.

“At the time we did not have any platform throughout the corporation to support online learning,” he said. “The enormous amount of commitment of her time and effort was a monumental demonstration of a dedicated educator. To say she will be missed is an understatement.”

McClure said Ault is about the closest thing that comes to irreplaceable.

“She’s a diamond,” he said. ” I wouldn’t even call myself her supervisor, but a colleague and friend.”

Ault said she would like to thank all of the administrators she has worked with over the years and those that have been supportive of any opportunity she wanted to pursue.

For future teachers, Ault said it is important to encourage the students, but to not weaken their standards, and to always keep up with the latest technology.

Lastly, Ault shared one single word of advice that has helped her throughout her years in education in preparing the future generation.

Patience.

To express their appreciation for Ault, Brownstown Central Middle School is creating a memory book for Ault as a keepsake. They would like to invite anyone to send stories, memories, pictures and/or expressions of congratulations and regards to [email protected].