Written by
The Associated Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- When Monte Bute's family found out he was dying, they told him to get out and see the world. Go someplace warm. Do what he always wanted to do.
So he did. He kept teaching.
"There's nothing more appealing to me than teaching," said Bute, a social science and sociology professor at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul. "I'm fine if they carry me out on a gurney someday."
Death was already a frequent topic in Bute's classes, which use philosophy and literature to study human thought and behavior. But the discussion is now enriched with newfound insight from Bute's personal struggle. He tells students that although most people focus on the finality of death, dying is a stage of life -- just like being born or getting married -- that deserves more attention.
"The more sanitized Western culture's become, this is just another ugly thing that we don't want in front of our eyes," said Bute, 66.
At Metro State, whose 9,000 students are mostly adult commuters, Bute has been surprised at how receptive his students -- most of them in their 30s -- have been to his message. He said young people tend to have an illusion of immortality, a feeling that it's never going to end, he said. But it's important to allow death to be a visible part of one's life.
Those who know Bute, who was diagnosed with stage three pulmonary lymphoma last February, say they're not surprised he's still teaching.
"Everything's a teachable moment to Monte," said Dan Buck, who graduated from Metro State two years ago but remains close to Bute. "His life has always been a teaching tool, so it's just an extension of that."
Bute, who still looks healthy and energetic, announced his cancer to his undergrad class on the first day. And it's frequently the butt of his jokes.
"It's pretty powerful that he's so dedicated to his career that he can keep powering through, despite everything he's going through," said Kelly Hanson, a senior.
Bute has an energetic teaching style that's given him something of a reputation at Metro State. It was on display in an interview with a reporter, too, with Bute at one point clapping his hands and yelling, "Wake up!"
He said most people sleepwalk through life and he wants to make them think critically about every aspect of their beliefs.
"My goal is not to direct students to a certain answer," he said, "it's to blow up their world so they start questioning things."
After students learned of Bute's illness, a Facebook fan club sprang up. It now has nearly 400 members.
"Teachers like Monte are rare," Buck said. "Everybody should have a Monte in their life, whether a teacher or not."
Samantha Erickson said she always left Bute's course in tears because it was one of the most difficult she'd taken.
"But in the end, it was one of those courses that changed my life," Erickson said. "It changed the way I look at the world, the way I see myself."
In a recent Tuesday night class, students sat at an oval-shaped conference table and discussed the work of a German sociologist. Some looked frustrated and said they didn't understand the text. Bute listened with a slight smile.
"What the hell? You think you'll get by in this class only reading it once?" he said, laughing.
Slowly, the students worked through the difficult passages and perked up.
"He really just forces us to think more than other teachers do," said Hanson, a student in the night class. "In other classes you can get by with just doing the superficial work, reading and regurgitating. He requires us to actually think about it and analyze it and interpret it in our own way."
Bute's situation begs comparison to that of Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor whose "Last Lecture" video about facing death from pancreatic cancer drew millions of viewers online before he died in 2008. Bute called such comparisons unfortunate; he said he sees his own situation as more of an ongoing process than Pausch's.
Bute's experience has brought him closer to the two daughters he and his wife adopted from China. The girls, ages 12 and 14, have struggled to understand their father's approaching mortality. One often tells her dad to promise he'll stay alive until she graduates.
"I'll try my best," he tells her.
This summer will mark Bute's 25th anniversary with his wife, Bonnie Matson. The two are very different, Matson said. She's an introvert, a departure from Bute's open, outspoken nature.
"You can only have one Monte in a family," she said.
Bute said he grew up in a strict Mennonite family in Jackson, Minn., and found a taste for rebellion early. He described wild behavior that included shoplifting, speeding and drinking that eventually landed him in a reformatory.
Later, he warmed to thinkers like Sartre and Socrates, tried college briefly and worked as a reporter in Austin, Minn. Later, he moved on to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, where he said he used hallucinogenic drugs regularly. He eventually came home and devoted several years to political activism, including protesting the Vietnam War and working as a union organizer.
He started teaching part-time at Metro State in 1984, seven years before getting his bachelor's degree.
Some students relate to Bute's wild past.
"He wasn't some dude who went and got a PhD ... he's one of us," Buck said. "He's just as sketchy as us. He's been there."
Bute's cancer is in remission, but Bute said the previous period of remission last only three months. He doesn't expect this one to last, either, and says he's OK with that.
"It's been a glorious life," Bute said. "My god, what more could one ask for?"
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)