Retired Educator Develops Lifeline for Parents

Retired teacher offers tips to parents and teachers on how to enhance a child's learning and promote his well being. She communicates her ideas with her book, a web site, and through speaking engagements.

Independence, IA (PRWEB) November 18, 2004 -- When Iowa teacher Jacquie McTaggart retired from a satisfying forty-two year teaching career in 2001, she wondered what she would do with her time. She no longer wonders.

Today McTaggart is still teaching, but her students are parents and educators hoping to learn from her experience. McTaggart estimates 50% of her curriculum is based on what she learned from kids, 30% from parents, and 10% from colleagues. She credits the remaining 10% to common sense that comes with age. McTaggart is 65.

McTaggart began sharing her tips on parenting practices that affect the learning process when she became the weekly educational columnist for the Independence (Iowa) Bulletin Journal and the Oelwein Daily Register.

In December 2003 her book, From the Teachers Desk, was released. (http://www.booklocker.com/books/1421.html). The book is written for parents, and focuses on kids between 6 months and 16 years. In it she addresses thirty-one common parental concerns -- with humor and without blame.

McTaggart recently launched an interactive Teacher to Parent web site (www.theteachersdesk.com), and a free monthly newsletter. The site offers suggestions on how parents and teachers can help kids to be more successful in their learning endeavors. New content appears the first of each month. Questions, answers, and articles are easily accessible. Readers are encouraged to send questions and offer feedback.

McTaggart also spreads the word by speaking at symposiums for parents, and at International Reading Association state conferences. During the final week in October she addressed 1000 attendees at the Pennsylvania and Alabama reading conferences. On December 9th she will step outside the box" as she speaks to residents at Fellowship Square in Mesa, AZ. Her topic that day is, Youre Never Too Old to Try Something New." It appears McTaggart is living proof.

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