Do What Makes You Come Alive

First and foremost, I want to say congratulations to the class of 2023. I would also like to thank the families, friends and faculty for being here to celebrate today! 

For those of you who don’t know who I am, I’m Colin Dalton, a teacher at La Jolla Country Day School, and I have had the privilege of teaching 106 out of the 122 of the 2023 graduating class. Many of you I have known since ninth grade, and I have had the rare opportunity to watch you change and grow into the magnificent people I see before me. 

When we first met, you were these awkward, unsure, but absolutely precious little 14-year-olds. I want you all to reflect now on how much you’ve changed. You’ve grown from ninth graders fighting over who got to sit on the couch in my room to seniors fighting over who gets to sit on the couch in Mr. Prychun’s room—from complaining about the difficulty of Mr. Doerge’s accelerated physics class to now, complaining about the difficulty of Mr. Doerge’s AP Physics class. 

All kidding aside, your class has had to endure uncertainty year after year. Zoom classrooms, hybrid learning and a real-life pandemic marred your high school years. Yet, through it all, you were flexible, adapted and overcame. The class of 2023 is unique in that you are the first graduating class in history affected by COVID all four years of your high school career, but you didn’t let it daunt you. In the education world, teachers, administrators and probably many parents were worried about what the isolation caused by COVID would bring for not only the academic side of student life but also the social side. What would the school community look like when we all came back together?

I waited with apprehension to see how your return to campus would impact you, and what I saw amazed me. I saw the same thoughtful, caring, intelligent young people I had parted with during spring break in 2020, but something was a bit different, you were more refined. You would not allow something as silly as a pandemic to stop you from loving your friends, pursuing your dreams, and taking every imaginable AP and honors class. Who doesn’t need to take seven AP or honors classes and audit an eighth? You created lasting friendships with peers and faculty alike, said “bruh” more times than I can count, and had the most uproarious bell-ringing ceremony I have seen at Country Day. 

How did you do it? The answer is simple, even if it wasn’t easy. This achievement was only possible because of who you all are. You are creative thinkers who can push through adversity with a strong worth ethic, a tremendous drive and only a few existential crises.

As you go into the world, my advice is easy, even if it isn’t simple. Don’t lose sight of the things you have that make you great. Keep being silly, building relationships, and most importantly, completely you. I don’t want to diminish your academic achievements because they took so much work, but it’s important to acknowledge that the world is full of academic achievements. What the world is lacking is people like you—people who have the courage to be themselves and to make the world a better place. As the great author and civil rights activist Howard Thurman once said, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” I have watched you all grow into people who have truly “come alive,” and I could not be more proud to have been a part of your journey. 

Thank you, and congratulations again to the class of 2023.