This is a moving and personal story of teacher’s life told from her side of the desk. Teachers build a nation by touching the lives of the youth and you will be there, too, as the stories touch your life. Everyone knows what it is like to be a student; they don't know how it is to be the teacher! The author began teaching in 1960 before the civil rights movement was in full swing. Through the eyes of the children and the teacher you will watch education change in the forty years that followed. When you read Touching Lives you will share wonderful and surprising experiences with students of various ages whose lives have touched my own. As you read, you will cry for them, worry for them, and always you will love them as I did. Laugh with me when Henry brings his snakes to school. Enjoy the adventure to the aquarium; and the trip to the woods through the eyes of the children who have never been out of the city. Any person involved in education, at any level, will enjoy this story. Shirley A. Kitner-Mainello