All behaviour is meaningful and purposeful. All we do is behave. One of the goals of Positive Education is to develop strategies for schoolwide positive choice actions and management of our behaviours. 

Student achievement is directly tied to the motivations of our akonga, when you enjoy what you do, it never becomes work. I give you a recent example, a story from the Performing Arts and Music.

• One afternoon last week I stayed late, listening to awesome 90s grunge and some originals. They weren’t on repeat; it was a full setlist. I caught up with one of our Music Teachers, Mr. Harington, and he told me the students involved were Caleb Tulloch, Stefan Keller, Jack Ingram, and Blake Hughes. They were all working on Achievement Standards for collaborative composition, performance and recording. However, it was not the credits that were motivating them, but an upcoming gig at a well-known venue, Dog with Two Tails (DWTT). Mr. Harington mentioned how self-motivated they were, self-organised and all taking deliberate steps towards learning competency. They put together a demo tape and sent it to the DWTT and they said, “Yep! You can have a date”. The outcome couldn’t be any more positive.

According to William Glasser, an eminent psychologist who developed Choice Theory, a way of recognising the role that motivations play in our choice of behaviour, this has to do with an idea he calls the “Quality World”. 

We all have one, and everyone’s world is totally unique and special only to us. We create this world based on the positive experiences we have with the people in our lives, places that we visit or times that we celebrate, interests and activities we yearn and engage in, and the principles and values that reflect this world.

Students and adults who have a strong and stable connection to their Quality World are motivated and purposeful and exhibit positive, connecting behaviours. Students and adults who have small, fractured, unstable connections to their Quality World, develop disconnecting behaviours which reinforce their perception of their world.

For positive behaviour strategies to be effective, they need to make their way into the students’ Quality World. Strategies and education can better explore their behaviours and motivations through their Quality World. School environments, activities & interests and most importantly, the teachers and other members of the community, all need to be present in the Quality World of our akonga for positive behaviour to thrive at King's.

Just like Caleb, Stefan, Jack & Blake, when we have a strong sense of belonging to a place, interests and people, we are always willing to put our best foot forward to create positive behaviours.