When the high winds of Tropical Storm Irene blew the first day of school back a week in a tangle of trees and wires, the Newtown school district found it had to start the school year with four days of cancellations on the ledger — as much time off as the typical winter imposes on the schedule. (Last winter was not typical.) While the downside of this false start probably will not be felt by most students until February when they go looking for a break and there is none, the upside was in evidence this week. The normal welling up of excitement and enthusiasm that attends the start of a school year was bottled up for an extra week, giving these first days of the 2011-2012 school year an extra pulse of momentum. And the quickening could be felt not just in the schools, but throughout town.

Education is the one enterprise that offers everyone a stake. Notwithstanding the disingenuous political meme currently in vogue in some quarters that scoffs at intellectualism, science, and excellence — all repackaged as “elitism” — the challenges we face as individuals, families, communities, nations, and globally require not only that we be smart, but also knowledgeable.

The only way we can think of to transmit knowledge is education. As author and historian Will Durant observed, “Education is the transmission of civilization.” So if we are to offer any hope to succeeding generations for a civilization in ascension rather than decline, we should stand in support of education — not just in general, but in particular. That means supporting not just learning itself, but the optimal conditions for learning, which are not the exclusive province of the schools. It means standing in support of safe homes, safe streets, good nutrition, exercise, healthy lifestyles, respect for others, and even a good night’s sleep. The seeds of civilization may be planted in our schools, but they are cultivated and reaped everywhere else. And each of us has a role as stewards of the process.

So let us all take advantage of that extra pulse of momentum supplied by that hard-knocks teacher Irene last week to recommit ourselves at the start of another school year to the cause of education, not just in our schools, but in our personal conduct, in our homes, our businesses, and our community as a whole.