TEXT TRANSCRIPTION Article from The Derick and NewsHerald Oil City, PA Date: Wed 13-Sept-2006 By LEIGH PROTIVNAK, Staff writer One of the best tricks up any magician's sleeves is misdirection. Unfortunately, in real life misdirection can lead to bullying, the magician/speaker told Cranberry School District students during assemblies on Tuesday. James Warren, who just relocated to the East Coast after living in Los Angeles for the past 25 years, spends most of his time touring high schools and using magic as a vehicle to convey anti-bullying, drugs, smoking and peer-pressure messages. Most people who bully others are simply looking for ways to make themselves feel bigger by making someone else feel small, he said, using spinning discs to create the illusion that two students' heads were growing and shrinking. Bullying is physically hurting somebody, tearing someone apart emotionally, or indirectly hurting someone by spreading rumors about them, Warren said. "We aren't about tearing people apart though," he told the students as he tore a newspaper into 16 pieces. "We're about putting them together," he said, magically restoring the paper. "A lot of groups bond because they look at the rest of the world and think everyone else is a dork," Warren said. "The power of going along with a group could easily distract someone from doing what's right and make them do something they don't really want to do," he added. "In the real world, make sure you know which way you're looking and where you're going," Warren told the students. He told an anecdote of a time in college when he was bullied by his three roommates. The three men stripped him down, wrote "Hi" on his stomach, and tied him to a chair. They put him in an elevator of their 10-story dormitory, and sent him down toward the lobby where students were gathered for a formal homecoming dance. He was able to quickly escape and stop the elevator, narrowly escaping humiliation. "Can you imagine if the girls in their evening gowns would have seen me? That's something I never would have been able to live down," he told the crowd. He warned of the consequences bullying can sometimes have, citing the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. The Columbine shootings were a result of frustrated kids who were sick of being bullied and "just exploded," he said. He stressed the importance of getting help for yourself or another who is a victim of bullying. "Telling is not tattling, it's intervening," he told the students. "It might even save a life." Warren started doing magic in third grade with a "Sneaky Pete Magic Set" he got for Christmas. "It was love at first sight," he said. He decided to make magic his full-time career about 15 years ago, and he started performing at restaurants and for parties. With a master's degree in divinity in hand, he later made the transition from doing simple tricks to using his talents to get a larger message across, and since then he has spoken before more than half a million students. |
TEXT TRANSCRIPTION Article from the Cortland Standard Cortland, NY Date: Friday, October 6, 2006 Magic helps spread anti-bullying message in Dryden By SASHA AUSTRIE Staff Reporter A chorus of "Wow! How did he do that?" emanated from the Dryden Middle/High School auditorium Thursday. James Warren, a magician from Ithaca, held court at the auditorium and, more importantly, held the attention of approximately 150 seventh-graders while performing his Magic with a Message program, which discourages bullying. "I was very impressed," said Rebecca Tice, a foreign language teacher and co-facilitator of the school's character education program. "The kids were truly amazed." She said Warren "wove the magic and the message incredibly well." Warren, who moved to Ithaca from Hollywood, California about six months ago, said he wanted to use his magic to do more than entertain. For 12 years Warren has walked into schools across the country, leaving anti-bullying/tolerance, anti-smoking and peer pressure messages in his wake. "It's good for kids to hear (the anti-bullying message)," said Larry Hinkle, assistant principal of Dryden Middle School. "It is unfortunate that (bullying) happens." At Dryden Middle/High School, Warren was delivering his message of anti-bullying to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. "I thought it was interesting," said Evan Canfield, 12. Canfield was one of the volunteers for Warren's demonstration on how a bully can make a person feel small. Canfield was instructed to not move and the audience was asked to look at a dot on a black-and-white spinning wheel, which was placed in front of the seventh-grader's face for almost 20 seconds. When the wheel was moved, Canfield's head appeared to shrink. "When bullies try to make themselves look big by making someone else look small, that is an illusion, folks," Warren said. He also used the wheel to make seventh-grader Felicia Caraballo's head appear to swell, as she was portraying a bully with a big head. Warren used such props as a newspaper page and a mirror to help convey his message to the children. Warren held up a mirror in a small bag and pushed a knitting needle through it saying, "If someone calls you a name, let it go right through you." Warren told the audience that bullies don't often 'attack' if they are by themselves. "They don't get enough out of it that way," Warren said. "We can be easily influenced by other people," he said. "Nobody influences us more than our friends." Warren shared a personal bullying experience with the students to let them know there was hope. "I was bullied a lot myself in school," Warren said. "This is a personal mission in the anti-bullying message." To end the presentation, Warren had one final trick. It wasn't an illusion or sleight of hand -- it was a principle of physics. Warren used physics to show the students that victims of bullying feel suspended. "You feel there is no way out, you feel like you are going to crash," he said. Caitlynn Ross, 13, volunteered to come on stage. Warren made her hold a metal washer, which was attached to a string. The other end of the string was tied to a cup. He suspended the string over a stick, and when Ross let the washer go, the cup only fell halfway to the fllor. "This is not a magic trick," Warren said. "This is a principle of physics. Centripetal force." Ross, who was bullied because she was a "little overweight," said she "ignores bullying or tells someone about it." Felicia Caraballo, another of Warren's volunteers, said she always felt "small." "Last year, a kid kept calling me names because I was short and small," she said. "He kept throwing my stuff on the floor." Caraballo said the program was "cool" and recommended it be used at other schools. |