How We Purchased a Honor Student

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Dee, actually DeLaine, was our third daughter. Her first-grade teacher was Mrs. Looney at Hawthorne School in Sweet Home.

During the summer between her first and second grade, we moved to a different house on the eastern side of Sweet Home, a short distance from the city limits. That meant the kids had to change schools to Foster School.

But the change was a little easier for Dee since her second-grade teacher was Mr. Looney. I was on the school board at the time, which allowed me to exert some subtle pressure on teacher selection. 

Anyway, it was an easy transition for all the kids. Our oldest daughter, Brenda, was in Junior High School, so she was not affected by the move. Amy, our middle daughter, was a very good student, and the change caused her no problems. Good students do well under any circumstances. Our son, Derek, was not in school yet.

The school year started, and things seemed to be going pretty well. The clinic was busy, and I probably didn’t pay much attention to the goings on at school. Foster was considered to be one of the better elementary schools in the district, if not the best.

Then came our first parent-teacher conference. For the most part, these were pretty routine. The kids were always at the top of their class, an asset to have in the classroom, and there was nothing else to say.

But our conference with Mr. Looney was a bit different this time. 

“Dee is doing well,” Mr Looney said. “That is everywhere except in her reading group. I have her in the highest group, but she is lagging a bit, and I am considering moving her to the next group down. What do you think of that idea?”

Sandy and I exchanged glances. This was new to us. We had never had to make any decisions about the girls’ education before.

“Just what does that mean?’ I asked, with some concern in my voice.

“It’s not a major change,” Mr. Looney assured us. “The second group is still pretty good readers; they just seem to read at a slower pace.”

“How close are you to making that change? I asked.

“There is no urgency. I just want to do what is best for Dee.” Mr. Looney said.

I scratched my chin and glanced at Sandy again.

“Give us a couple of weeks, and let me see is get her a little more involved,” I said. “Do you have any competition within the groups?

“I keep track of where they are in their assignments,” Mr. Looney said. “It is not a real competition, but the kids can check their standings if they want. Right now, Dee is the lowest in the group of eight students.”

“Okay, I’ll check back with you in a couple of weeks,” I said as we stood up to leave.

Sandy looked at me as I started out to the car. 

“What are you thinking?” Sandy asked.

“I’m thinking that Dee will do better if she is in competition with the rest of her group,” I said.

“How do you instill competition in Mr. Looney’s classroom without his help?” Sandy asked.

“I’ll have a plan worked out in my mind when I talk with Dee,” I said.

The following evening, after dinner, I started a discussion with Dee.

“Mr. Looney said you are at the bottom of your reading group,” I said. “Do you have trouble with your reading?”

“It’s no big deal,” Dee said. “Bobby is the best reader, and he brags about it all the time. I doesn’t matter to me.”

“So, I have a deal for you,” I said. “You get to the top of your reading group, and I will give you twenty dollars. But here is the rest of the deal. You can’t tell anyone about our deal. Not Mr. Looney, and not anyone else in the class.”

Twenty dollars was a lot of money for a second grader in 1980. I could see the wheels turning in Dee’s head.

“A twenty-dollar bill?” Dee asked.

“Yes, but the deal is off if you tell anyone,” I said.

Sandy was not impressed with my deal. If we had any disagreements about raising the kids, it was typically of this nature. Sandy strongly believed that everything should be balanced between the kids. If you give something to one, you give it to all. I believed that you gave a push to whoever needed it.

Most of the time, I gave in to Sandy’s thinking, but this time I stood firm.

***

I was in Foster school a couple of weeks later and bumped into Mr. Looney in the hall.

“I don’t know what you did, but Dee is doing a whole lot better in her reading,” Mr. Looney said.Ω

“So you are going to leave her in the top group for now?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, she is in the middle of the group,” Mr Looney said.

It was a few weeks later when I talked with Dee about her reading.

“Mr. Looney said you were doing better in your reading group,” I said.

“Yes, I have almost caught up to Bobby<“ Dee said. “He is getting worried.”

***

A few weeks later, Dee was at the top of her reading group. I stopped in to see Mr. Looney, not to double-check on Dee’s standing, but to see what he thought of the tactic.

“Dee was tickled when she made it to the top of the group,” Mr Looney said. “I was wondering what was going on. Last week, she was checking the standings every day. When she made it to number one, she said, ‘Great, I get twenty bucks!’”

“What do you think of how that happened?” I asked.

“Whatever works, I guess,” Mr. Looney said. “Now that I look back on it, the competition between the kids got everyone doing better. I am thinking that I am going to have to come up with a plan to try to keep the competition going.”

***

Once Dee experienced being at the top, she never looked back. All our kids were highly successful in school. Sort of making their father look like a dunce when you compared records.

Dee graduated from High School as the salutatorian  of her class. She got a B in typing. She typed 110 words a minute after the first semester, and never improved on that during the second semester. The teacher graded on improvement, so Dee got her B.

At Oregon State, she was named to the Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete Team in rowing. She earned a BS and then a Master’s degree in genetics. Ultimately, she earned a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego.

Not a bad purchase for twenty bucks.    

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