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Tira Bluestone, Teaching Artist and former Touro NYSCAS and Touro GSE Alumni, discusses how composing original songs with everyday themes help students with physical and psychological challenges improve their motor skills and become active participants in their own healing and learning.
The Faculty Chronicles (TFC) podcast, sponsored by the Touro Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), is about building community, connection, and conversation. It will bring to life the stories behind the great works of Touro faculty, across disciplines in all our schools, focusing on classroom innovation in teaching and learning, science, business, medicine, education, wellness and more.
Hello and welcome to the Faculty Chronicles, TFC, a podcast sponsored by the Touro Center on Excellence in Teaching and Learning and the Office of the Provost. Your TFC podcast hosts are me, Professor Gena Bardwell, and Dr. Elizabeth Unni. Across academic disciplines, Touro faculty are producing great work, and the Faculty Chronicles wants you to hear all about it.
TFC Podcasts will highlight faculty chatting about their favorite project and research, teaching, learning, science, medicine, technology and so much more. So let's get busy building community, connection, and continuous conversation Touro-wide. Our next Faculty Chronicles guest is on deck, waiting to chat.
Gena: Welcome Tira Bluestone. Welcome to the Faculty Chronicles. Tira was a valedictorian of the 2013 graduating class, majoring in early childhood and special education, and after graduating with her B.A., she started her master's program in special education at Touro Graduate School of Education.
Tira is an accomplished musician, and for over ten years, she's used her musical and innovative teaching skills, working with young people with a variety of special needs. Currently, she's employed at Arts Horizon as a teaching artist, where Tira-Time music programs are now virtual, helping to build self-esteem and encourage social interaction through the language of song.
Arts Horizon’s arts education programs are under contract with John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Department of DSA and Accessibility. Both programs merge the fields of art, healthcare, and academics to create a space of comprehensive education, healing, and expression for residential and special needs students with extended or residential hospital stays.
Tira is also working at the International Academy of Hope, iHOPE, as the director of their music program. She also works at Snack as a music therapist and movement instructor. This is an activity center for children and adults with autism, spectrum disorders, and other developmental and behavioral abilities.
Welcome Tira! We're so glad you could join us on the Faculty Chronicles. Now you took music, and combined them with your teaching skills, and use them for students with special needs. And I think it's a career which seems profoundly fulfilling.
I'd like to begin with your musical journey first. Could you tell us a little bit about what it was like for you as a student at the New York School of Performing Arts?
Tira: Yeah, I'd love to. First, I just want to say it's a thrill to be here with you. And I love being a part of alumni special events and I’m so proud to be an alumni of Touro College. Being a part of the High School of Performing Arts is what you asked. And I am happy to say that I was thrilled to have been accepted into the High School of Performing Arts because it's difficult to get into the school. You have to audition for the school and there's a rigorous process.
Gena: So we know you're a true New York performing artist, but you also worked on Broadway and off-Broadway. Talk about that experience. What was that like?
Tira: I had my first off-Broadway experience when I was under ten years old, and I played Nick in A Thousand Clowns.
Gena: Wow.
Tira: I just remember that it was a thrilling experience for me. Later, when I was in my teenage years, I auditioned and made it into the off-Broadway theater called The First Old Children's Theater, and that was on Broadway and 65th Street. That was exciting because that was when I first started my musical experience in theater, and I got the lead in one of their musicals called Guess Again. Funny enough, my twin sister, who also went to High School of Performing Arts with me, was also in that theater company with me. And so, we were in the show together, and that was a lot of fun. Gena: And it sounds like where you got a lot of skills. You learned a lot about music, about theater, and a lot about performing.
Tira: It wasn't until later, though, that I performed on Broadway at the Ed Sullivan Theater in a musical called Dream Time, where I was singing one of my oriGenal songs that I wrote called Find Yourself a Dream Come True.
Gena: You’ve had such a storied career. So now how did you hear about Touro? What brought you to us? Tira: In the midst of all of this that was happening, I, and there was a woman in my group and she says, “Why don't you go back to school?”
And I said, “Well, that's an idea.” She said, “My daughter went to Touro and she took education and it was a great school.” So I said, “All right, I'll look into it”. So I went and I went to Touro and I looked into it, and I found out that I needed to have finished high school or have a GED. And, unfortunately, I had neither. It wasn't until years later, when I was just driven to, all of a sudden, go through school, get that GED, get that college entrance exam. I found a study course that I could study for free. And, I just went vroom, vroom, vroom and I took off like an airplane.
Gena: Did you know what you wanted to major in or study when you came?
Tira: I had no idea what I wanted to do when I came. I just k new that the timing was right for me to go back to school. And so, I kept going back and forth. I didn't know if I wanted to be a doctor or if I wanted to be an educator. I knew I wanted to work with children because I was already working with children. I had already begun my career working with children, doing music therapy before I went to school, and I just did what came naturally to me and it seemed to be the right direction.
And, when I did go to school, and what it really did for me was confirm that I was going in the right direction and that I was on the right track. And, it took me one step further to be a professional educator.
And that's how I was able to blend my music and my education to work with the kids in music therapy.
Gena: I know you write music and how do you incorporate those songs when you're working with the students.
Tira: Well, I oriGenally wrote the songs because I saw what they needed to learn, the kids. They would tell me what they needed to learn. This one little boy used to come running up to me and he'd see me with the guitar, and he’d get so excited, he'd throw his arms around himself, and he'd look around the room like to see if everyone was as excited as he was. And he’d throw the name of the song out at me and he's like, “Be kind to your pets”. And he'd like, wait for me to play it. And I don't know a song, “Be kind to your pets”. So, I was like, I guess I can write one. So I did, and I wrote a song “Be kind to your pets”. And from there, I just kept seeing that it brought them, it seems to me it brought them such joy, that I would give them the song that they were asking for, that I just kept doing it.
It drove me to become passionate about wanting to continue now and this:
“Be kind to your pets. They will love you too. Show them you love them in all that you do. You can give kisses, hug them good night, just don't ever tease them, ’cause they might bite., Be kind to your pets, and love your own pets, and pet your pets, so gently, Your pets are a part of your family.
Gena: Oh, You've also turned some of those songs, you've turned them into video recordings, right? Tira: I did. I have been able to use the songs that I created, and draw pictures for each song, and throw them together with the song and make a music video. And so, I've made music videos for almost every song that I have. And it's funny because when I work with the kids in the school, I taught them the sun salutation through music.
I wrote a song for the sun salutation and they’re so cute, they’re so little, and they’re going like this, “one - hands together, two - reach out, up and back, three - bending over, four - one foot back, five – other foot back, six – knees, chest and chins, seven - up into the cobra, eight - downward dog begins, nine - stepping forward, ten - the other leg, eleven - reach out, up and back. Twelve - hands together to say, was that so. very much fun, doing the sun salutation.
Gena: Oh, I like that. I like that.
Tira: I put it into song. So, that's what I do with the kids. Whatever they need to learn, I put it into song.
Gena: What do you think special needs students understand about the power of music?
Tira: You know what? That's a great question, and I'm going to answer it very carefully because I think that there's not the need for an understanding with these children. It's an experience of joy that comes. They're connecting with me in a way that they don't connect to people on a daily basis, because they
don't have the ability with their dysfunctionality.
Gena: Well, the video that I reviewed where you were playing the guitar for that beautiful child in the wheelchair. And then after you were finished, you said, “You know, put your hands together, put your hand on the instrument, and then she could stretch across and laid her hands across the guitar. It was, it was a profound moment.
Do you do you think art programs like the ones, all the ones that you are involved in, the three that I mentioned and I'm sure there are more, do you think it's going to continually be hard to get those funded, even for teaching artists like you?
Tira: Well, you know, it's interesting because it's the thing that's most needed in the schools, and it's the first thing that gets cut when the funding gets lowered. And, you know, it's shaky ground to know whether it will continue to get funded. It's not shaky ground to know that it's needed. I just know that it's something that brings joy and I want to be a part of it.
I wouldn't be able to do any of this if it wasn't for my education at Touro. I mean that. I can't even value enough what I got out of my education at Touro, going for the bachelor’s and going for the master’s. I had such support around me, and it, it made me feel like a million dollars on my day when I gave the valedictorian speech because
Gena: It was a great speech. I was there.
Tira: All of my hard work was recognized, and I did work hard, and it was important to me. It was the most important thing in my life and because I had, what I do is I write songs. Then I draw books for every song. Then I combine the songs and books to make music videos and computer games. So, it's a four-part multi-sensory stimulation. Gena: Well, we're very proud of you at Touro. We're proud to play a part in your career success. Just keep doing what you're doing.
Tira: Well, thank you. And I'm going to tell you to keep doing what you're doing at Touro, because you can keep churning out people like me to help the world.
Gena: Thank you.
Thank you for tuning in to the Faculty Chronicles, TFC, Touro’s podcast featuring the projects and work of faculty throughout the Touro College and University System.
TFC is sponsored by the Office of the Provost and CETL, the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. We hope you like what you heard and will keep listening. So, join us next time on the Faculty Chronicles as we highlight and share faculty achievements that b