Tenacity and Commitment

"Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground."  Mary Kay Morrison

This quote sparked thoughts about the 80 year old oak tree that grows in my New Zealand garden. Its tenacity and commitment resulted in a huge tree with a beautiful thick trunk, sturdy branches and tens of thousands of leaves, all of which come down in the autumn.  One branch has grown around the thick rope of the child's swing that has been there for many years.

The genetic instruction of the acorn was to grow, reaching upwards and downwards, using the soil, sun, air and rain to ensure that the tree survived.

We don't have genetic instructions to grow a trunk or branches or leaves.  Our genetic instructions are to meet the needs of survival, belonging, power, freedom and fun.  

We choose behaviours to get what we want which is aimed at meeting those needs on a daily basis.  Our soil, sun, air and rain is the nourishment we need in our lives to continue to grow as people.  

In classrooms, that nourishment is vital for the growth of each child to blossom.  In schools where internal control psychology is the basis for all decisions, the nourishment is evident.  


Some schools have been working to implement the ideas of Choice Theory for a long time.  Sunshine Beach State School in Queensland, Australia began its journey 20 years ago.  Koraunui School in New Zealand has been training people in Choice Theory and its applications for more than ten years. It takes tenacity and commitment for a school to continue on this pathway.  

Sometimes the climate produced by the governing bodies does little to enable schools to pursue with the tenacity and commitment needed to match their own quality world pictures. Seemingly endless barriers are put in the way of quality, and schools struggle to keep up with barrages of change. 

It will be the ones that hold their ground that will win through and provide the sort of education that all children need and deserve.