Culled from AP News
At a small farmhouse outside Colombia’s capital city, Marlene Beltran picks up a ruler and crayons. She turns on the radio, sits down at a creaky wooden table and helps her 5-year-old brother with a lesson on how to make paper cubes and decorate them with drawings that tell a story.
The Beltrans work on dairy farms and have no internet connection at home. So an hour-long radio lesson developed by the municipal government keeps the children busy — to a degree — while schools are closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Broadcasting was once used widely in Latin America to teach basic math and literacy skills to those in rural areas. Now radio and TV lessons are making a comeback during the virus lockdown, especially with the region’s spotty internet connectivity.