Pretty cheeky, right?  Putting a picture of myself in this article?  But seriously it embodies what I want to say.  It shows what it feels like when everything connects.

You can tell that I love dogs, in this picture and in every other moment of my life.  Dogs are the simple answer to life’s most complicated questions.  When you bring a dog into a classroom full of juvenile delinquents, surly and full of themselves, they melt like little children.  They want him to sit by them; they want to pet him; they want to know why I didn’t bring him today.  He has captivated their attention and turned their demeanor upside down.

Take all that a step further and show those same students how dogs can carry you on the most amazing journey of your lifetime through territory you would never dream of crossing and the hook begins to grab hold.  My students from Community Day School are high school students who have the most terrifying journey in front of them and one many may not complete – graduating high school.  These students are for the most part raising themselves without the advantage of role models.  Using the Iditarod as a teaching tool in the classroom gives these students role models they can believe in.  This is not fiction and it is not some lofty mind pursuit that they cannot see relevant in their own lives.  It is all too real, full of life and death challenges where the wrong decision or a lack of quick thinking could end in disaster.  They understand that.  I do too.

Now let’s take it another step further and extend the love affair that I have had with dogs my whole life and watch my excitement become theirs.  Passion IS contagious.  Now we begin to watch what the mushers do every day to eventually get themselves to Nome.  The goal setting, the planning, the study and practice, the determination and the commitment to never give up.

We start with some pretty compelling character education and then extend it naturally into the real plans the mushers deal with in math, biology, nutrition, geography, physics, economics and get them to read and write about it and you get what is beginning to sound like a pretty complete education.  This is what the Iditarod in my classroom did for my students and they really didn’t feel like it was something they couldn’t do as they had before when they practiced skills they didn’t care about and could see no use for.  With the relevance that the Iditarod experience shows them they begin to apply the concepts that they are learning to every day life.

Do you see where my own consuming passion for dogs has taken me and those around me?  My only problem is now that some of my students don’t want to return to the regular high school when they would be ready, because CDS is too much fun.  Who would have thought?  My next job is to be the example that refuses to give up and that if you keep trying you will succeed.

By Blynne Froke Finalist for Target’s® Teacher on the Iditarod Trail™