Benicia Middle School Tackles Bullying

The first week of October is anti-bullying week at (BMS). During this week, students and faculty focus on what is perceived as a growing problem of kids inflicting emotional or physical harm upon one another.  To facilitate that awareness, student made signs that adorn the quad with encouraging words from Jesse Jackson and the Dali Lama, and on Tuesday, students attended an assembly featuring speaker-performer Cary Trivanovich who specializes in talking to kids about bullying.

“Bullying is just being mean, intentionally mean,” Trivanovich told the students. His presentation was a combintation of pantomime performance, that quickly captured the student’s attention, reminiscences of how he found his own confidence while in middle school and high school, and a demonstrative metaphor he used to describe the roots of bullying behavior.

“As with anything, my message has grown,” Trivanovich said between assemblies. “That comes with both experience and knowledge, from getting to know kids and parents and educators and psychologists, and putting all the notes together and understanding bullying completely,” Trivanovich said.

The message seemed to have gotten through to many of the students who not only gave Trivanovich their rapt attention but also genuinely enthusiastic applause.

“I thought it was really good,” said eight-grader Bela Tringali. “I liked his metaphor with the chairs (three chairs that represented) the people that he liked because they encouraged him and helped him become the person he is today, the people in the middle that he didn’t remember or know, and the people at the end who he didn’t want to remember because they were mean to him,” Tringali recalled.  Tringali said she identified with the metaphor and could see which category some of her fellow students fall into.

“He really focuses on being people of character, and being those students and people who are givers rather than takers,” said BMS Principal .  Minahen said that this is the first bullying presentation the school has had in three years.

The attention to the problem of bullying was welcomed by both students and parents.  One parent who asked not to be named to protect the identity of her middle school student said, “My son is in 7th grade and he was bullied last year, and this year it’s happened to him again.”  Bullying activity in the school was confirmed by 6th grader Makoa Copp who said, “I’ve seen it happen a lot to other people, but it hasn’t happened to me.” He said the worst part is “to see other people get picked on…it’s quite a problem, but it’s not always serious; sometimes it’s joking around sometimes it’s not."