The Niles Star

Editorial: Here’s to a new school year

Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010

Think back hard enough to the tender ages of youth and remember the first day of school.

There was almost always a buzz, a level of excitement, of anticipation for the new year. Before the hardships of homework could set in, there was the thrill of a backpack filled with brand new folders and spiral notebooks, binders filled with loose leaf paper, the smell of No. 2 pencils and making sure everything, while school related, was also in line with the latest trend.

It’s hard to remember that enthusiasm for the first day of school once the school days are over and everyone is grown up and the focus is thrown onto budget matters and curriculum and where the taxes go.

It’s hard to inhale that nostalgic sense of possibility when thinking about privatized bussing or shaving a little more off the cafeteria allowance or figuring out what standards mean what to whom.

As the school year edges closer, we hope more and more of the big people take time to remember what it felt like to be a little person with the brand new backpack and the unopened package of markers or crayons. We hope that the community will reach out where it can and afford those supplies to those children who may still need them.

We hope that parents will find embrace the new year and not entangle it in the concerns that are anchored to adults and adults alone, so those children starting of their new year at school will have a good experience.

We hope that those parents will remember that education doesn’t end with the bell; it continues after class, at home and it only makes the future generations smarter and better equipped to handle an ever-changing world.

Sometimes the true purpose of education gets lost in semantics and political realities, but its essence can be practiced every day.

Once upon a time, that essence was as simple as a brand-new eraser or a package of fancy mechanical pencils.

We even thought the textbooks were cool — the first day, anyway.

Here’s to all of the area’s students heading back to school. We hope it is a year filled with possibility and success.