This Week in Chester History

In 1962, the Observer-Tribune reported on Miss Martha, a West Morris Regional student, who will be attending school in a unique way. House-bound due to an injury that left her in a cast and unable to leave her home for six months, Martha will have one two-way speaker installed in her bedroom and the other carried class to class by a student whose schedule matches hers. The “bedside” instruction is supplemented by occasional home visits by her teachers– making skipping homework impossible, cheekily noted the newspaper.

Most interesting is a final note by the newspaper, who mused that “it is not inconceivable that these same technical geniuses will… come up with a portable television-telephone. They will probably call it something like “phony-vision.” If only they knew some schooling would be done virtually in the 21st century! Maybe we should petition Zoom to rebrand as “Phony-Vision”…