TEDxTheBenjaminSchool
Student Speakers
BECOME A BASH VOLUNTEER
Gianna Ajmo
Gianna is a 7th grader at The Benjamin School. She is quite the artist! She loves to dance and create art. Gianna’s TEDx Talk is about how she loves to draw everyday scenes in surreal colors and how, in life, context should never affect our expectation of color.
Alex Bories
Alex is a 7th grader who has been going to The Benjamin School for four years and has done plenty of things outside of school like track and field as well as musical theatre in the summer for six years. But outside of academics and sports, Alex also plays a different type of sport, video games. His TEDx Talk is about the ability to shift between first and third person perspectives in video games and what that can teach us about our own moral accountability in the world.
Sai Chigurupati and Cameron Salehi
Sai and Cameron are 8th graders currently attending The Benjamin School in South Florida. Sai’s favorite subjects are Math and Science, and he has won chess tournaments and is a part of the winning French team at school. Cameron loves to act, play sports, and be a positive role models for others. Cameron works to the best of his abilities in the classroom and endeavors to be a good person in his daily life and a good sportsman on the field. Cameron and Sai’s TEDx Talk speaks to their love of designer fashion from Nike, Adidas, Supreme and Off-White and their wish to coalesce this passion with a desire to give back in the world.
Sarah Darby
Sarah Darby moved to Florida four years ago from New York City. She is the oldest of three siblings, and the only one with straight hair. Sarah has cultivated lifelong passions for art, reading, history and science. She knows every word to the Broadway musical Hamilton. Her TEDx Talk is about how our lives are all connected through fragments.
Maddie Domnick
Maddie is a 7th grader currently attending The Benjamin School. Maddie has two dogs named Fergie and Ajax. She has a passion for science. She loves to eat and play soccer in her free time. Maddie has two siblings both of whom are in college. Maddie’s Tedx Talk is about silence and how it is better to be actively silent as opposed to passively silent.
Eden Doner
Eden was born here in Palm Beach Gardens. She has one older brother. The sports she plays are golf and rowing. When she is older she wants to be a sports reporter. Her Tedx Talk is about movie scores and why everyone should have his or her life set to music.
Emilie Dubiel
Emilie Dubiel is a 7th grader at The Benjamin School in North Palm Beach, Florida. She has two older brothers, and she loves playing with her dogs and baking. In her free time, she plays sports such as lacrosse and tennis. Her TEDx Talk is dedicated to the students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Alexander Fleming Lake
Alexander was born in the Caribbean on an island called Anguilla. He has two sisters and goes to The Benjamin School in South Florida. He likes to swim, and he is on a country club swim team. His mom is a lawyer and his dad is a businessman. His TEDX Talk is about African Americans and segregation at swimming pools.
Nicolas Frezin
Nicolas was born on September 23, 2004. Nicolas has a passion for basketball and a passion for education. Nicolas’ TEDx Talk is about some of his past negative experiences being coached on the basketball court and how we normalize anger and sometimes profanity as a means of coaching young men that we would never allow in a classroom. Nicolas no longer plays on such a team. Rather, he is proud to play for Nike Team Florida (NTF).
Bella Garaj
Bella was born in Aspen, Colorado but grew up in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. She is in the 7th grade and has one sister named Ziva Garaj who is in 3rd grade. She lives with her dad and her dad’s girlfriend named Dawn. She loves traveling to new places and seeing new things. Every summer she goes to sleep away camp in Pennsylvania for 7 weeks. Bella’s talk addresses the pronunciation of her last name, some people‘s unwillingness to learn that pronunciation, and the effects of such an unwillingness in hindering an inclusive culture in our world.
Jackson Gregory
Jackson is 13 years old and is in the 7th grade at The Benjamin School. He recently moved to Florida from New York City. He has two brothers, Shepard (his twin) and Beckett who is seven. Jackson enjoys playing competitive tennis and playing all sports. His TEDx Talk is about how Dyslexia is his secret code and how, when it comes to decoding language, he is not on the outside looking in, but on a new and different kind of inside.
Shepard Gregory
Shepard Gregory used to live in New York City until recently when he moved back home to Florida. He loves tennis and is starting to become a competitive player. He is one of three siblings. The thing he loves to do most is be with his family. As his bemused look in his photo would suggest, Shep has absolutely nothing to say in his TEDx Talk---or does he?
William Harris
William is a 13-year-old 7th grader, has been attending The Benjamin School for the last two years. Prior to moving to Florida, he lived in New York City where he attended The Allen-Stevenson School. He enjoys playing tennis and golf and loves to spend time with his friends and family. William's TEDx Talk is about how his little brother Philip's following him around taught him some important lessons about authentic leadership and the dangers of blindly following, particularly on social media.
Sebastian Hell
Sebastian was born in Germany and lived there for twelve years before he moved to Florida. Physics is of great interest to him because his father is a physicist. He loves time spent in the garden looking through a magnifying glass at plants. In 2014, things changed for Sebastian when his father won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Sebastian's TEDx talk is about not living in the shadow of his famous father, but, rather, in his illumination.
Eric Levine
Eric is a seventh grade student who has been attending The Benjamin School for nine years! He has a passion for music and has been playing violin for eight years. Eric lives with his mom and his three dogs, Bongo, Jewel, and his new puppy Kirbie. He loves being outdoors, and some activities he enjoys are biking, frisbee, fishing, and when he has a chance, skiing. When Eric was nine years old his dad died suddenly and Eric has persevered. His TEDx Talk is about how important it is to discuss tragedies and how difficult it is to talk genuinely and effectively about one’s own loss.
Katia Orsic
Katia is in the 7th grade. She moved to Florida last year from New York. In school Katia enjoys subjects such as science and french. Katia has been playing the string bass since 4th grade. Katia enjoys playing sports like tennis and soccer. She speaks Croatian and goes to Croatia every summer. Her TEDx Talk is about honoring all the languages she speaks equally.
Anthony Pace
Anthony is a 7th grade Benjamin student who moved from Connecticut 3 years ago to Juno Beach. A passionate mountain biker, Anthony bikes local trails with his dad and rides on long-distant epic rides. Anthony has three birds, two dogs, a snake, and an interest in water sports and boating. Anthony has been playing the violin since he was four. Anthony’s TEDx Talk is about physical and mental nomadism, the theory of becoming, and how you should lose yourself to find yourself.
Brin Poswencyk
Brin is an avid reader and likes to ride his bike. He likes his hair dyed red/orange. Like any other kid, he likes to watch television. Brin has won the Honor Roll several times. He likes all kinds of music. He has a two year old brother named Dean and a very caring family. Brin's TEDx Talk is about how his Mexican salamander, also known as an axolotl, is neotenic, meaning he retains childlike traits when mature and how neoteny can be seen in our current culture.
Joie Rodin
Joie is a Benjamin Middle School Student in the 7th grade. She has one brother in Pre-K. She loves to dance and play her three instruments: the alto saxophone, oboe and piano. Her Ted Talk is about the long running series "Grey's Anatomy," and the Platonic Ideal in the age of media. The Platonic Ideal means that nothing in life can ever be the exact way that you plan it to be.
Darian Salehi
Darian is 12 and lives in Jupiter, Florida. He is a student at The Benjamin School. Darian likes playing sports, hanging out with friends, and has an ambition to learn. Through preparing his TEDx Talk, Darian has learned how powerful words can be and how there is a trickle down effect when ill chosen words are used by our elders. He is happy to share the TEDx stage with others who have great ideas worth spreading.
Jonathan Skatoff
Jonathan was born December 30, 2004 in Florida. He has three siblings whose names are Genevieve, Sean and Henry. His hobbies include soccer, video games and football. His TEDx Talk is about the danger of neophobia and the way we hide behind the world “impossible.”
Kiran Spencer
Kiran was born in New York City and spent his first couple of days in a room with a view of Yankee Stadium, which may explain his lifelong love of baseball. He moved to South Florida a few years ago with his mother, where he now plays soccer and tennis year-round in sunshine. He also likes economics, problem solving, Star Wars, creative writing, poker, and playing trumpet for his school band. His TEDx Talk is about the impact of arming teachers in classrooms.
Charlie Spungin
Charlie was born in Jupiter, Florida at Jupiter Medical Center. He has 2 brothers, Jason and Jarrett. Jason is 27, and Jarrett is 24. He has four dogs, Brutus, Deuce, Red and Jackson. Charlie enjoys writing, particularly about sports. He has been playing travel basketball for four years. Charlie's TEDx Talk is about the power of brevity in prose and physical stature.
Colin Stangel
Colin was born and raised in Chicago. Colin is 12 years old and he is in 7th grade at The Benjamin School. He is a Filipino American who speaks English. He moved to Florida in August of 2017. He likes to play basketball and play video games. His favorite class in school is science because he is interested by all the different experiments. Colin’s TEDx Talk is about the potential damage that euphemistic pejoratives such as “Fudge” or “Shut The Front Door” can do and how connotation can be more important than denotation.
Treasure Stein
Treasure was born in Jupiter, FL and started attending The Benjamin School when she was 3 years old. She is now a 10 year old 4th grader. Treasure enjoys music. She plays 4 instruments, piano being her favorite. She loves mathematics, public speaking, gymnastics, and playing with her 3 German Shepherds. Treasure is the oldest of 4 siblings with whom she is very close. Treasure will be speaking about the power of Mnemonics.
Jasper Wright
Jasper is thirteen years old, lives in Jupiter, Florida, has two dogs, and he attends The Benjamin School. He likes to draw, play soccer, and game. Most importantly, Jasper loves to beatbox. His TEDx Talk mainly revolves around how everybody needs a beat. If you do not have a beat, you are not centered with the universe. He is excited to perform for everybody and share the stage with other peers.
Main Address & Lower/Middle School
11000 Ellison Wilson RoadNorth Palm Beach, FL 33408
Ph: 561.626.3747
A premier PK3 - Grade 12 independent, coeducational day school with campuses in North Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens. Since 1960, The Benjamin School has provided a challenging college preparatory education to a diverse student body in a structured, nurturing community environment.