On Friday, September 2, the Charlotte Latin School Class of 2023 (130 seniors) celebrated Convocation Exercises, marking the official beginning of the class' senior year.

Head of School Chuck Baldecchi and Head of Upper School Lawrence Wall welcomed guests and students to Convocation. 

Mr. Baldecchi described the class as thoughtful, kind, and jovial. He continued, “The next nine months will include challenges, accomplishments, and memories. Your time has come to lead and to leave Latin a better place than you found it. Go enlighten the world!”

After touting a creative and diverse list of summer activities in which the class participated, Mr. Wall said to the seniors, “Continue to take that zeal beyond the classroom, living life to the fullest in all contexts of interaction. Continue to be the students who put your arms around a friend with trouble at home and bring comfort. Continue to rescue animals from the betraying neglect of careless masters, to put your hands to the shoulder of a deprived child you’ve given your time to tutor and tell him ‘We can do this.’ Keep striving to make this community roomy enough for the full humanity of everyone here. And by these things, you will have confounded the monetizing metrics of the College Board, which has yet to find a way to give one person a 5 and another a 2 on the biggest test of life: being good people.”

Student Council President Holt Daniels '23 welcomed the day’s speaker, Educational Technology Department Head, English Instructor, coach, and parent, Alan Becker, to the podium. Holt described Becker as someone who is, “Dedicated to bettering his community.”

Mr. Becker suggested that as we emerge from the protective shell of the past two years that we see this year as one of renewal. He offered nudges to help us “awaken” to our best potential this year, nudges that might counteract the distancing — social, emotional, and academic — that we experienced during Covid. He leaned on the wisdom of American philosopher and naturalist Henry David Thoreau.

Becker asked students to think of a time when they were happy about being fully and genuinely engaged with something at Latin: “Creating an art project, working out a math proof, reading a great novel, or writing one, performing on the stage, or practicing a sport. Think about how this was so satisfying to you that you didn’t even notice it was hard work until after it was over,” Becker encouraged. Thoreau, he said, called this “getting in touch with your Genius.” 

“Being together here at school, in the classroom, in the quad, at practice, gives us the perfect opportunity to renew our attentiveness to one another,” Becker continued. “Part of our renewal has to be the acknowledgement that we need to be fully present to experience the best of CLS. It means taking advantage of opportunities to interact thoughtfully in the classroom, to see and hear and listen and enjoy being with one another.”

As he closed, he proposed to all Upper School students and the Class of 2023, “This year, let's do more than just show up, let’s make an effort to close the distance that has opened up over the last two years. Let’s strive to be fully awake and fully present each and every day, ready to create the Genius-level relationships and accomplishments that will become your most enduring memories of Charlotte Latin School.”