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SPEAKER 1: I went down cleaning one day and underneath our couch found a plant growing in the carpet. I mean, it was like three or four inches high and I assumed that it was probably a popcorn plant because that's what would have been spilled. So I went upstairs, put the popcorn plant in a jar, wrote an article, and took it down to the editor, and got out of there as quickly as I could.

Well, the next day I picked up the paper, and here it was on the front page of the paper with what I would say now is my silly little article about this popcorn plant. I discovered fairly early that I have a knack for humor. I can write humorously. And so it started out to be humorous stories about being a wife and a mother of kids and a teacher and so on. And then only gradually has it evolved into some more serious issues. But it was Erma Bombeck I think is who I was patterning after. Some serious ones but more humorous at the beginning.

SPEAKER 2: What was the first column you wrote that was serious or personal, and was that a step that you had to think about before you published that?

SPEAKER 1: I think I did some probably that were fairly serious about education but not so personal. I think the personal ones started in 1983, going through alcoholism treatment with my former husband. We went through treatment in Granite Falls Project Turnabout as a family. And it was at that point that I wrote about it.

And it's interesting that you would ask about it being a conscious decision. When I write my column, and this is true to this day, I really don't think that anybody reads it. So it becomes more of a personal effort on my part because I love to write and because I love to put things down on paper.

When someone tells me they appreciate it or when someone calls me or criticizes me, it almost takes me by surprise because I don't think of it as being read. If I thought, Mark, someone was reading that column on a regular basis, I don't think I would be able to write. Now I know that sounds very strange.

So I think I did the treatment kinds of things. And then it was only two years later that my mother died. And what I found through my column, by writing about the process of going through the grieving with my mother's death, was that there were many other people who related to that.

Those columns that I did that were personal got the most vocal response from people, whether it's in the form of phone calls or letters. And it really struck me how we have a difficult time talking about those things, which are so very important to us and that we must deal with before we can go on.

So I think that was a, I don't know if it was a compliment, or a reassurance, or maybe just a, I don't know, affirmed that what I was doing was-- I liked what I was doing, that other people liked it too. Then as we got on into '87, '88, and '89, there were struggles. By '89, I was divorced, and I wrote about that too.

And I think now, I think, how did you do that, Mary Beth? And I'm not sure how I did, Mark, except that I did do it. And again, the response from my readers was incredible. Calling, and writing, and thanking. I didn't ever write about the divorce from the standpoint of the conflict, or the frustration, or any of that. I wrote about it from the personal struggle and from the recovery angle, and I think that's part of it too.

And then of course, to get into my brother's suicide, again, for me personally, my writing is a way of dealing with it. And I began also to see it as a way of connecting with other people. I know there are many people, Mark, who couldn't write about the personal things that I do and maybe even see it as an invasion into my privacy. But I've never seen it that way. As a teacher, I've been very open in my classroom. Maybe, Mark, it's what saved me through all of this, is my ability to connect and to relate my personal stories.

SPEAKER 2: You've brought with one of the columns you wrote about your brother's suicide. Read a little bit from that for me.

SPEAKER 1: I can picture my brother in my mind always saying he had to lose weight. He would grab another cracker and smother it with dip while grabbing from the tray of hors d'oeuvres. Laughing, he would come back for more, knowing that I knew that he loved to eat and enjoyed eating. His shirts may have started out tucked in, but before long, the shirttail was out, and the pants drooped a little.

No matter how hard he tried, he wasn't one of those who looked sharp in his clothes. He looked unkempt always. His red hair was graying as he entered his 50s. And at one point, despite his intelligence, he decided to dye it on his own. His hair turned green. His patients must have had a laugh as he tried to explain why their doctor was treating them when his hair was green.

A picture on my counter shows a serious little boy with his hand on the ragamuffin dog, sitting on the steps of the pink house on Stern Street in that small South Dakota town. He's surrounded by all of us who played together. The childhood moment is frozen and never changing. The picture stays the same as do my memories.

When he took his own life last year, he couldn't comprehend just what those of us who are left would do in the course of the year after. His illness overpowered him. He couldn't see through the pain of living to recognize that dying was worse. He couldn't have known that we would do so many things differently if he were still alive.

SPEAKER 2: When you write something like that and talk about a personal experience, do you see that as an extension of teaching in the classroom, or is it something separate?

SPEAKER 1: I think my column at first was separate. I saw it as a place to be not a mother, not a wife, not a teacher. Just Mary Beth. And sometimes that's hard to find when you're busy. Gradually, as I got into teaching more writing and working more with kids, and humanities, and history classes, I began to see it as an extension of my teaching.

Because what I began to understand is that my writing process, imperfect as it is and messy as it is, is much the same as the kid's writing process. So then when they could see-- sometimes I would write with them and end up with a column that I had written during the course of a class period. They began to see that I would start and stop and get frustrated and rewrite. Then I think that helped them to understand, you don't put words down on a piece of paper, Mark, and have them be wonderful, golden words right away. It's a struggle. And so it gradually became an extension of my teaching. At the same time, always loving it because it was something I could do totally on my own.

SPEAKER 2: What kind of reaction did you get from students on some of the personal columns?

SPEAKER 1: When my brother died, it was just a couple of weeks before school started. So when I started school, I was still very raw. And I knew that I either had to share it with them or really work very hard not to. And I decided because they were mostly juniors and seniors that I would share it with them, particularly my seniors.

And what you discover, Mark, with kids is when you open yourself up to your own pain and your own vulnerability, that they also will open up. I think that because I shared my writing and my feelings with them, they were able to come back and share wonderful writing and wonderful stories with me. I treasure those couple of years that I had with kids doing exactly that.

SPEAKER 2: That sounds like a great recipe for a teacher to follow. But a teacher in a business course or a mathematics, are there ways they can open up to students and bring some of that personal things in and improve the classroom situation?

SPEAKER 1: I have to believe, Mark, that the most important thing we do for kids in the classroom is to help them begin a process of self-discovery. I don't care whether it's business, or math, or science. We're still talking about young people here who are struggling to figure out who they are.

So in a math class, I think more math teachers now are actually having their kids do journals on the process of learning math. So I think through that comes a whole different dimension of learning and of feeling and emotion, because I know myself, I have I have a math anxiety that I got when I was in fourth grade. And I think there's a part of it there.

Science, business, writing letters, writing wonderful, perfect letters to get something you want or to ask for something. I really believe, Mark, there are opportunities in every curriculum area. Sometimes, you have to hunt for it, but I think it's one of the most important things we do.

SPEAKER 2: But it's really up to the teacher to do that. And if no one pushes the teacher to explore that area, it probably won't happen.

SPEAKER 1: It's easier not to, Mark. It's easier to stay with the textbook or to stay with the curriculum. It's easier. And again, some people can't open themselves up, and that's perfectly understandable. Some people have difficulty talking about themselves, and that's understandable. But I do think that it helps students at least to have a taste of who we are as people and the fact that we didn't just get to that classroom easily or smoothly and that we don't live smooth, perfect lives.

I'll never forget I was riding a bike around the lake one time. And a student stopped me and said, do you know how to ride a bike? And I thought, what do they think I do? Read Shakespeare all the time? You know, that whole sense. Again, if you bring yourself to a situation and allow yourself to be there, I think other people are more apt to bring themselves. And then I think there's an honesty in the classroom, and that would be one of my goals.