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5 Timeless lessons on 4 Letter Words

Robert Pacilio
5 min readOct 28, 2019
Courtsey of Ian Schneider from Upsplash

Last week I was a visiting lecturer at Southwest Junior College, which is a stone’s throw from the Mexico’s border with San Diego. I was also visiting with the professor who was my former student when she was a mere freshman in my English class. Quite proud I was of her, you see, because she was in charge of guiding a group of 25 students transitioning to a four year university despite their challenging circumstances.

And what where those, you ask? Professor M (for privacy) wrote me about the class because as all good teachers know, one of the first rules in teaching is know your students. They were young folks 18–23, who slept on the floor of their cramped homes, crossed the US border to come to class, came from schools that had underperformed, were living on a shoe-string budget, but they were bright, caring and loyal to her. Professor M had me at would you come….

Before I tell you the 5 lessons about 4 letter words, this preface will set the scene. I sat under the shade of a tree waiting for the class to begin and sitting next to me was a young lady whom I assumed was in the class. So I asked her if she recognized the song playing from the snack shack nearby. She said no. So I asked her if she heard of Stevie Wonder. No.

“But he is the famous singer who sang ‘You are the Sunshine of my life.’” Nope. Hmm. “Bruce Springsteen?”…

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Robert Pacilio
Robert Pacilio

Written by Robert Pacilio

San Diego County “Public School Teacher of the Year.” (32 year veteran) Author of five novels & a memoir available on Amazon and at www.robertpacilio.net.

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