By Kathy Kelly

*More than 30 years ago, educator Kathy Kelly recognized that the Iditarod was an engaging theme to hook students into reading, writing, and math.  Kathy wrote an article for the Learning Magazine.  A discussion between the magazine’s editor and Joanne Potts resulted in a suggestion and Iditarod providing the first ‘teacher’s tool’ to teachers who sent Iditarod $1.00.   More than 1,000 dollar bills arrived that year, and the ‘press guide’ was sent to the teachers to help them teach about the race.  Each year from then on, the number of teachers using the race has increased.  Today, teachers in all states and many countries use the race with students.  The teachers are from private schools, public schools, and home school environments.  Pre school – university level teachers —  needing lessons for all curriculum areas are involved with the Iditarod.  Again this year, our numbers of teachers and students are increasing!  But, let’s take a moment and look back….

Recently, we asked Kathy to share what ‘teaching then’ was like, compared to teaching now.

My workday always began at 6:30 am with a long-distance phone call to the Iditarod Trail Headquarters in Alaska (12:30 am in Wasilla). With pen and paper, I carefully recorded the current rankings of the competing dog teams before grabbing a quick breakfast and heading to my fourth grade classroom. When my students arrived at school there was none of the usual pre-lesson commotion; they raced to their seats, pulled out their Iditarod Trail materials and eagerly awaited my report on the progress of their favorite mushers.

Of course, back in the mid-eighties there were no personal computers in the classroom, let alone in the homes of the students and the Iditarod Trail Committee didn’t have the interactive web sites to follow the race from beginning to end with real-time audio and visual Internet feeds. All the teaching resources kindly supplied by the Committee traveled by what we now call “snail-mail.” But none of these early communication problems seemed to make a difference in the ability to excite and educate the students in my class.

My initial interest in the race was ignited when, by chance, I met a musher while on a ski trip to Colorado. After he regaled me with stories about the Iditarod Race, its history and annual reenactment, I was hooked. I used the following summer, to research the Race, collect material and develop a curriculum around my new passion. In truth, it was relatively easy to incorporate the Race into math, science, and language arts. What I needed were more resources.

Working on the East Coast, I searched for whatever materials were available locally (very little) and at the Iditarod Headquarters in Wasilla (a lot). Fortunately, there were many books published at that time about sled dog racing such as Stone Fox and Black Star, Bright Dawn. Whenever I saw a program on TV that dealt with sled dogs or The Race I made a videocassette (remember them?) to use in the classroom.

A real motivator was the Musher Booster Buttons. The children loved the idea that, each year, Alaskan children designed the official race button. After purchasing a button-making machine, one of our favorite activities was making our own buttons with designs by each child.

Another resource that my students loved was the Musher Trading Cards complete with a photograph, stats and personal information about their favorite musher. During free time they were able to play a board game called “Mushing the Iditarod Trail.” The game included four small plastic sleds filled with miniature pieces of required gear such as a food pack, sleeping bag, ax, snowshoes and booties.

In the eighties, the completion of the race took longer, averaging more than eleven days compared to nine days today. And, in the eighties, women dominated the race. Libby Riddles won in 1985 and that breakthrough was soon followed by Susan Butcher’s three consecutive wins. In addition, Dee-Dee Janrowe was always a fierce competitor usually finishing in the top ten. The girls in my fourth grade prided themselves on a popular T-shirt that read, ”Alaska, Where Men Are Men and Women Win the Iditarod.”

The parents of my students never stopped telling me how much they enjoyed the unit because following the race was something they could be do as a family. When they asked their kids the usual question ‘What did you do in school today?’ parents reported they always got an enthusiastic response instead of the usual blank stare.

In the late eighties, I had another chance meeting on the East Coast with a teacher from Alaska named Annie Lawler. We struck up a friendship and began a pen pal correspondence between her school in Big Lake and my school in Baltimore. E-mail wasn’t an option so student letters traveled many miles and often crossed in the mail.

In the spring of that year, I traveled to Alaska with my husband to visit our sister school and teach a unit on the State of Maryland to the students. I brought memorabilia donated by the State of Maryland and collected by my students as gifts to their pen pals in Alaska. We made a videocassette of my Maryland students receiving their pen pal letters and each child said a few words to their new friend in Alaska. Today, of course, SKYPE or iChat could do the same thing but we had the excitement of doing it for the first time.

The high point of my trip to Alaska that year was being an Iditarod Dog Handler at the ceremonial Race start in Anchorage for Martin Buser. His wife Kathy was a kindergarten teacher at our sister school in Big Lake, Alaska and arrangements were made for me to assist Martin that morning. His only advise to me before running the few blocks with the dogs to the starting point was, ‘Please don’t step on their paws’.

Although technology has changed the way teachers and students follow the race today the end results are the same. Children learn about the unique relationship between these special dogs and their handlers. They also learn about setting a goal and following it through to its end.

I still have a letter written by a student twenty-five years ago saying that after studying about the Iditarod Race, he dreamed of the owning a team of huskies and racing to Nome, Alaska. I don’t know where Brady is today but I am happy in knowing I gave him a dream.

Kathy is retired from teaching, but she still continues to share the Iditarod .  Her yearly presentation schedule includes schools where her grandchildren will be in the classroom audience.  The Iditarod continues as an important teaching tool, for Kathy and for thousands of teachers around the globe.