Words That Changed The World Competition Delivers

Five Thayer seniors — Sofia Eastwood, Matteo Niccoli, Alta Randall, Luke Shahied, and Paige Johnson — electrified their Hale Theater audience March 2 as finalists in the annual Words That Changed the World competition, so much so that choosing a winner felt like deciding which member of the ’27 Yankees to pitch to. 

In the end, however, Upper School students voted to crown Shahied, who selected Robert F. Kennedy’s improvised remarks on April 4, 1968, when he broke the news to a crowd in Indianapolis that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. 

“What we need in the United States is not division,” Shahied, as RFK, told the crowd. “What we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness but love and wisdom, and compassion to one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.” 

All seniors take part in the Words That Changed the World competition via their English classes. The seniors first explain the passages of import they’ve chosen to perform and then, embodying the original speakers, make those passages come alive for their audiences. The five finalists who performed March 2 earned their spot by a vote of their classmates. 

For her passage, Eastwood chose journalist and author Anna Quindlen’s 2000 commencement address to Villanova University. 

“Don’t ever forget the words my father sent me on a postcard last year: ‘If you win the rat race, you’re still a rat,’” Eastwood, as Quindlen, said in remarks which drew a bright line between truly living and merely existing. Later in the address, that message became more explicit: “And realize that life is the best thing ever and that you have no business taking it for granted.” 

Niccoli selected the words of activist David Hogg, whose remarks at the 2018 March For Our Lives demonstration in Washington, D.C – just weeks after Hogg had survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida — called for citizens, especially the nation’s youth, to reject the failed policies of the past when it came to ending gun violence. 

“Now is the time to come together, not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans,” Niccoli, as Hogg, urged his listeners, adding that they did, indeed, have the power to change their world. 

In 2019 actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie, at the time a special envoy to UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, addressed that organization and called for the protection of all civilians but particularly women, who she said were bearing a disproportionate amount of the refugee crisis. Randall selected Jolie’s remarks for her WTCTW passage and delivered both a thoughtful and thought-provoking performance for her fellow students. 

“Women and girls are still the vast majority of the victims of war,” Randall, as Jolie, said before noting that women around the world are already working to protect human rights, often with little recognition or glory. 

“Above all, we need to understand that women themselves are protectors,” Randall, as Jolie, said. 

The final presenter that morning, Johnson chose for her WTCTW performance musician and record producer T Bone Burnett’s keynote address at AmericanaFest in 2016. The remarks offered a full-throated defense of the role of the artist in a world increasingly crowded with technology. 

“Art is a holy pursuit,” declared Johnson, as Burnett, referencing creative works as far back as Michelangelo and as current as the Beatles. Burnett’s remarks later noted that many of the tools found in an everyday recording studio were first developed for military reasons. 

“It is our privilege to beat these swords into plowshares,” Johnson, as Burnett, said. 

Aarav Vaghela ’27 and Ella Wenger ’27 served as emcees for the finals, which has become a much-anticipated event on the school calendar. 

“I’m so delighted that this has become one of our great traditions,” said Upper School English Faculty Kate Hayman, a member of the WTCTW team, in welcoming the Thayer community to the competition. 

The Words That Changed the World competition represents the senior component of Thayer’s commitment to leadership communication and public speaking across all grade levels. The sequenced array of curricular opportunities, which begins in fifth grade, develops not only effective public presentation skills but highlights the art of storytelling, the value of connecting with multiple audiences, and the importance of articulating ideas in impactful ways.