Tom Birosak

Interview 4/4/2017

1. Why did you enter the teaching field?

Young musician, still plays. 16 making a lot of money as a singing drummer. Hired by peers to
perform with their band, and because eof the money he made, decided he didnt want to go to
college. His dad convinced him to go to Berkely College of Music in Boston. Finished undergrad
at Marywood University. The best thing he did was follow the advice of his dad, undergrad in
music education taught for three years in PA while you were getting masters in education
which gave duel cert in elementary ed and special ed. At the end of the masters he was certified
in el ed and music education. Job opened up at Owego in special education 1995, serious
decision to switch from music to this. Reason why: 1 always liked to work with the underdog, 2
back then, salaries were significantly different in NY than in PA, so it was a salary increase and
he was just recently engaged, so he wanted to provide.

2. How are things different now than they were when you started teaching? Why?

Do you ever regret switching from music ed?

Aspects of music ed he truly loved, the music and product highly visual and performacnce
based thing, the sound of the ensemble he misses but no regrets switching to special ed.
Hired at the 8th grade level, for the first 7 years was self contained.
Then there was talk of No Child Left Behind the self contained classroom ended. Kids who
were in self contained were now in the regular classroom.

Self contained pros: operate on the needs of the kids, did tests with kids based on their needs,
did academics as well as life skills like telling time, filling out job app., balancing checkbook,
counting change, host of things where he developed a curriculum that had true meaning for
those kids. Didnt operate on a bell schedule.
Within that program, if he saw a student that was able, he would communicate with a parent
saying wed give it a try in the regular content classroom, have them get on board with inclusion
in a regular ed setting, and if the kid could keep up with the work, they stayed.
It was a very healthy system. Say there was a classroom of 16 students, 8 of them were
attending a variety of regular ed classes, with the extra help of him in collaboration with the
content teachers. It was a collaboration of all people meeting the needs of that individual
student.
N.C.LB took the individual aspect of meeting students away.
A wide varity of styles like co teaching inside and outside the classroom, and other education
programs were developed as a result. He lived through all that training, but nothing replaced
working with the individual needs of that specific student individually, pushing them where you
know they can.
They are no longer a circle, they are a square.
Took away the local diploma, so a lot of pressure from administrators looking at numbers, how
to change the 1s to 2s, and so on, creates competition among students, and those lower
numbers were special ed students, and it breaks his heart when the 1s just cant be a 2. You
cant pick up a rock and say Im going to make this a feather. Ive come to learn over the years
that there are simply students who get overwhelmed with the regents track.
We provide accomodations that help the students at a local level, and sometimes they are
sucesful at the regents level, sometimes theyre not. Sometimes the reality is fogged among the
younger adminstrators who didnt see the previous system that was in place.
Changes were simply made, and the biggest one was NCLB and Race to the top they just
rename thigns today, and renaming it doesnt make it successful.
If its not broken, dont fix it.
Are there positive things with the inclusive process? Yes, kids who had a medical drooling
problem stopped when they were put in the classroom. There is an increase for the kids with the
desire to perform better to compete with the regular ed kids, and that pushes them. That was
already being covered in the old system however. What this does is takes special ed kids and
unites them in a regular ed setting, and some will perform better than HE expected. He claims
its a system thats worthy, but its an extreme turn from what was working before.

Common core and other changes made to the curriculum says to the kids, this is what you
need to do, this is who you are.

Concise: When he started teaching it was individualized, very much so, based on the needs of
the student. Now, its all inclusive. Where as before he would decide if the student was ready to
move on, they start inclusive always.

3. Has anything ever pushed you to the point that made you want to quit?

Never ever wanted to quit. Isnt meant to be negative, but just a reality. All these things made
him want to try harder to figure out how to incorporate his ideas, makes him grow as a
professional. On a yearly basis he is forced to learn new things and adapt to new curriculum. He
has to adapt new state exam material and collaborate with other teachers but modify for his
students. How can he take something difficult and make it a happy thing thats accessible for a
student? The initial reaction when changes occur with test taking techniques, essay writing
techniques, all made him want to be a better teacher.

4. If you could tell my class of preservice teachers anything, what would you tell them?

5. Anything else you want to talk about?

When I was in school, I can remember getting spellers, readers, sentence diagrams, learning
how to speak base don diagraming sentences, learning cursive fundamental things that other
coutnries were trying to emulate within the American ed system. There are reasons why
nowadays we are no longer on top of the world. I beleve there is an educational component to
this. When you push technology and try to be progressive- ipads, smart apple tvs, no choices
and this is the way it is take out the strengths of a teacher and tell them they need to use
these thigns, it creates an issue. Ed system is advancing by trying to fix problems by putting
bandaids on things, rather than trying to fix teaching. There are also a parental problem I truly
believe some people should not have kids. Some kids, their parents come in to the classroom
and they suck! In a perfect world, kids would sit at the table to eat and do hw, but thats not
reality. We have a LARGE number of people, look at the numbers in special ed, with parents
who dont care about the education system. Then there are problems with the education system
I loved when I got tenure after my 3rd year, but there are a lot of crappy teachers out there
ones who dont put their best foot forward every day for those students.
Thank God in this district those teachers are few and far between. But not all districts are as
blessed with a good system.

Spanish has been a pastime of mine for many years. I like to read Spanish news, and in Peru
they are of late going through huge floods. Their president is questioning how those bridges are
still standing that were built so long ago, and the modern ones are collapsing. That is just like
our education system. If the one weve created now is not producing intelligent engineers like
they were years and years ago, who had to use pen and paper and write formulas long hand
there was something about that that simply made things better. He builds a house and it doesnt
fall down. These new bridges in Peru are falling down because were doing something wrong.
Metaphorical analogy!

Substance before education I worked as a nurses aid, an activity director, I learned lessons
from ancient people, they were like primary evidence, they knew things. I was talking to people
who were in WWI! I was just a kid and loved to go sit with them.

I also firmly believe, and have seen the reality of this, I believe there are spiritual forces that are
constantly at work, and I would never bring this up to an administrator, but I feel like any
success that Ive had, I was in a place where I had to ask god for help. I believe the 4th factor
that we are headed downhill, why is it ok for 1 district to give all this info about Islam, but the
moment you bring up what our nation and education system was founded on, you are done. I
think that has to be placed as a priority in determining where weve come from and where were
at. When you stray from a foundation or a substance, that groundwork can only get weaker. I
believe there is a spiritual realm or factor of why we are who we are as an education system
and nation its a slow conditioning.

I have 8 more years god willing left till my retirement and its hard

If there is something that you and your peers to aim for its a multicultural religious education

Go back in a time machine, youve been taught so many things in your ed system, really go
back and research this education system nad see where it was, the substance, compare those
with the new way of doing things, and decide for yourself what works, whats right, and dont be
afraid to express your opinion, step out. Try to make fundamental changes that will last for a
long time in this process. I remember when I was a percussionist at Berkely, my teacher made
me go listen to ancient recordings of drummers, bosanovas, fast jazz, funk, rock, beepop, and
what that does is make your musicianship as a drummer very diverse, you are incorporating all
those ingredients even classical percussion, and it makes you a very unique percussionist. If
you only focus on one style of playing, you might get great at it, but youll be very limited.
Joe Allard saxophonist studied with him, from teaneck nj, woodwind specialist- listened to
Birsoak as he played didnt tell me a signle thing about my breathing, technique, tone, posture
payed a lot of money of the lesson his wife got him a cup with a straw put the straw in his
moutn and took a sip, he said did you see that he said look anything that is not natural to
any instrument should not be practiced over and over again heers your first lesson, when you
practice I want you to use that, nothing unnatural.
Those words were very prophetic to me. When you practice soemthign over and over again the
wrong way. He drove home and said fuck, I spent 250 on that lesson, I didnt get anything from
it. But that picture of him staye din his head. He knew what I needed more than I did, that was
the only thing he said to me. But that advice opened my sound up like nothing else.