Lack of Phones in Classrooms

The telephone was patented 120 years ago but my classroom does not have one, nor do hundreds of other classrooms throughout the state. The recent tragedy in Scotland should make every parent stop and think.

Every time some gun nut runs amok on or near a school we teachers plead for telephones but all we get are excuses. If I look out of the window and see a strange character wandering about, all I can do is send a runner to the office. Somebody’s little child will have to outrun a spray of bullets.

Many parents complain that teachers are hard to contact; sorry folks, you have a phone at home and one on every desk at work and there is one in every liquor store in town but take a peek into your child’s classroom. I’ll bet there isn’t one there.

Telephones are so cheap, the wiring is so simple and inexpensive, yet we still do not have the most basic, the most useful, the most necessary little bit of electronic equipment ever invented.

As for getting on the Internet, didn’t I read that modems and those other newfangled gadgets have to be hooked up to phone lines? I’ll enter the computer age after we have entered the phone age, thank you.

JOHN J. FULFORD

Long Beach