Tuesday Teacher: Diana Taliercio

Diana Taliercio is a first grade teacher at St. Joseph's Catholic school in Winter Haven.

But on most days she is more than a teacher. Some days she's a magician who has work her magic to get her students to love learning. On the day we visited Mrs.Taliercio's classroom, she was using magic ropes to teach students the long "o" sound.

On other days she's is a musician. She pulls out her guitar and in no time flat, her first graders can name all seven continents.

With a smile on her face Taliercio explains how music can make a dull lesson come to life.

Taliercio says, "I discovered that if you put something to a song to notes...children remember it so well. If we had taught the seven continents by reading it in a book or something they wouldn't have remembered it, but by putting it to music they learned it in a few minutes."

Before Taliercio became a teacher, the world was her classroom. She names some of the jobs she's held: "I have been a railroad conductor. I have been a tour director taking people across the U. S and Canada. I have been a docent in a dinosaur museum."

Taliercio has been a teacher for four years now.

She says all of her previous jobs, including being a railroad conductor, put her on track to teach.

"It wasn't until I was 50 years old that I became a teacher and discovered that everything led to this direction and all my past helps me in the classroom as a better teacher."

It was Taliercio's husband who encouraged her to college and become a teacher.

Tina Elias volunteers at St. Joseph's and last year her daughter was in Mrs. Taliercio's class. Elias says her daughter couldn't stop talking about her teacher.

"Our dinner table topics were all about Mrs. Taliercio and how funny she was and laughing and couldn't wait to come to school the next day."

Mrs. Elias says she saw what a difference Mrs. Taliercio made in her daughter's life so now this mom is going back to school to become a teacher too.

Taliercio says it's never too late to go after your dream or try something new.

"This is where I am supposed to be. This is it. I picture myself being here as long as I can."