My education began within the halls of a private school.

I know, one says “private school” and there’s the visual of hard-browed nuns with rulers in their hands or rabbis with excruciatingly long beards and traditional ways of thought and really thick books.

But in my experience it was not all that bad. After all, there were the hamentaschen (festive cookies made in a triangle shape with fruit filling in the middle) to signify our Purim holiday. They’re like Fig Newtons but way better. Actually they’re not like that at all … I’m getting off track.

There were days off to celebrate the High Holy days, and there was the small library in the corner of the school building that held volumes and volumes of old books – some of them bound in old leather with gold detailing on the Hebrew letters –  where I would often go to get lost whenever there was free time.

My experience there will always be my first foray into the world of education, something taught to me as being an ongoing process both inside and outside of a classroom.
Since working at the Star I’ve had a chance to see the public education system in a way I would never have imagined, and it just so happens to come at an unbelievably important time as education is evolving and sadly devolving all across the country.

In the stories that I have written, from covering various specialty programs to school board meetings and anticipatory cuts to budgets, no story seems to end with the an exact picture of what I’m learning as I talk to administrators and teachers about what is happening in our schools.

Like education itself, to get the message out with the right words seems to be a constant challenge.

When it comes to those teachers, I can say I don’t think I’ve ever fully appreciated the challenges that lie ahead of them. To do better with less. To hold off on ideas and hold themselves to more standards. To watch as students flow in through the doors with newer, possibly more significant challenges that the ones that have come before.

I can’t always put on paper what it’s like to sit across the table from a teacher in tears over how some parents rely on their schools for the meals it feeds their children, the donations in some cases of boots and shoes.

And it sometimes doesn’t always fit in how there’s still that thick evidence of insecurity emanating from high school hallways. It’s always a humbling experience to walk through crowds of high school students who will eventually work their way up into adulthood and be new versions of their younger selves. And behind them are teachers who look beyond that youthful indignance and help them learn their way.

And so it is extremely disheartening that any budget cuts should be made to our educational system at all. And to be honest, I’ve yet to hear a good reason as to why.

Maybe that’s just politics but it doesn’t seem to me like it makes much sense. And maybe that’s me not understanding politics. I had a rough American politics professor who pretty much turned me off from politics altogether.

Imagine what could happen with even more cuts. Who knows what could end up in the White House?

The older I get, I can go back to my school and pull out all of the most important lessons I ever learned. It just so happens it was private, so the biggest lesson learned there was faith. It’s one lesson I actually do use every day.

And I learned that education actually takes place once the days of classrooms and recess and finals are over. School is just the starting point.

Seems a shame to be cut off right at the start of such an important journey.

Here’s hoping the powers that be wake up to just how important education really is. Something tells me there are a lot of teachers, students and parents out there who are losing faith in them even as we speak.

Here are to those teachers, officials and administrators who continue to do better with less.

Jessica Sieff is a reporter for the Niles Daily Star. Reach her at
jessica.sieff@leaderpub.com.