EDITORIAL

My assumption, and my hope, is that all loyal readers realize that our lead story from the previous page is (in addition to being a brilliant piece of apocryphal fiction) an April Fool’s Day prank.  I mean, it even says so right in the story.

In fact, our cover image depicts The Capture of Brielle, a small part of the revolt throughout the Netherlands that eventually led to the formation of the Dutch Republic.  Moreover, the capture occurred on April 1, and is said to be one of the origins of April Fool’s Day (there are several).

Despite its brilliance, our story is hardly the first, or best, instance of the media enjoying an April Fool’s Day prank.  My three favorites, in no particular order, are:

The 1957 BBC “Spaghetti Tree Hoax:”  This may have been the first time that television was used to propagate an April 1 prank.  The story showed images of several Swiss women picking spaghetti from trees and bushes as a part of the annual harvest.  Even today, CNN lauds this broadcast as the “biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled.”

The 1993 Cologne “Runners Speed Limit Hoax:”  The Westdeutsche Rundfunk radio station announced that city officials mandated a running/jogging speed limit of 10 kilometers per hour (roughly six miles per hour) so the city’s squirrel population could resume their mating rituals undisturbed.

The 1992 Chicago “Pay Per Hear Hoax:”  WXRT radio in Chicago announced that they would be switching to a “pay-per-hear” format.  Listeners could choose from five different genres of music and would pay a small fee to listen each time their chosen genre was aired.  The prank worked, as protestors flooded their phone lines and formed small picket lines outside the station.

Thanks to COVID, the world largely went without April Fool’s Day pranks for two years.  Too many people felt that those pranks would result in no better than Schadenfreude.  But, they are back, now, and we are happy to be a part of them.

However, please, no phone calls to the school Board or the District office!

My son was a 13-year-old in 2008 when he brought home a copy of The Hunger Games, which was published that year.  It was not an assigned text at school.  It was recommended by a friend, and he was reading it for pleasure.  As I did with all texts that he read, including those assigned by his teachers, I secured my own copy and read it, as well.  Soon enough, my daughter chose to read it, and eventually, the entire family was reading it.  Our dinner table discussions centered on The Hunger Games.  We were all reading for pleasure.  The sequels – Catching Fire and Mockingjay – made our reading lists over the next few years.

In June, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released the “Nation’s Report Card” which indicated a decline in reading scores among 13-year-old students.  The findings should alarm educators and parents.  However, it is a separate survey from this report that I find to be even more alarming.  Over the last ten years, the number of these students who read daily on their own time for pleasure has dropped by about thirteen percentage points.

These data are unnerving for many reasons.  As an educator, I am naturally drawn to the impact that this trend has on school performance.  Reading for pleasure leads to increased vocabulary, spelling, and mathematical abilities.  Moreover, reading for pleasure brings better empathy, decision-making, and social skills. 

So, what led to this trend?  One obvious culprit is social media.  According to the American Psychological Association, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, etc., are heavy draws and can gobble up hours of time.  But we have to acknowledge that blaming social media could be nothing more than Occam’s Razor.

The influencers in the students’ lives – no, not those influencers looking for ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ – have some work to do.  As an English teacher, I can encourage students to select their own texts and offer them ample class time to read them.  But they are likely to feel that they are still reading something that was assigned to them.

As parents, we need to foster a love of reading as early as possible.  We need to read to our children (heck, start when they’re in the womb!), supply them with books (of their choosing), read with them, and discuss what we read.  I have no grandchildren, yet.  But, if I am blessed with any someday, rest assured that I will make it a mission to get them to love reading.  I hope we all look forward to the dinner-time discussions.

Contact: searchlight@cardington.k12.oh.us

If you viewed the "print edition" of The Searchlight, you likely noticed that it looks a bit different than it did last year, and certainly much more different than it has over the several decades that it has been published.

We shifted from the “newspaper” format into more of a “news magazine” arrangement.  We plan to offer a publication for the entire Cardington community, and not just the high school audience.  Content will still include classroom news, student life, and sports news.  We will now present greater entertainment value with puzzles and games, events from around town, culture, fiction and poetry, art, and expanded photojournalism.  Those who are familiar with The New Yorker news magazine have an idea of our new model.

Why the change?  We feel that a news magazine format allows us to accept contributions from a greater range of people.  The Searchlight staff will continue to provide the bulk of the content.  But, students need not be a member of the staff, or even be enrolled in the Journalism class, to submit content.  In fact, we invite submissions from the entire district and the entire community.

We hope that this change meets with approval.  Questions and comments are always welcomed, and we will happily publish them in this Editorial section.

Contact Mr. Staley at eric.staley@cardington.k12.oh.us