WEBVTT 00:00:14.342 --> 00:00:16.821 I grew up unaware, 00:00:16.821 --> 00:00:19.055 like many of you, I imagine, 00:00:19.055 --> 00:00:20.794 that my heart was broken. 00:00:22.408 --> 00:00:25.252 I had been an excellent student. 00:00:25.782 --> 00:00:28.107 The kind that didn't need to open a single book 00:00:28.107 --> 00:00:30.528 to get a bunch of A's. 00:00:31.618 --> 00:00:34.297 I had loving, open parents 00:00:34.727 --> 00:00:37.094 who never tried to tell me which way I had to go. 00:00:38.044 --> 00:00:43.366 A grandmother that would hide chocolate bars under her bra cups. 00:00:45.664 --> 00:00:49.897 Five brothers, a dog, two cats, 00:00:49.897 --> 00:00:51.807 and a parrot named Paco. 00:00:52.187 --> 00:00:55.057 It was a real madhouse. 00:00:56.200 --> 00:00:59.330 I confess, I had a wonderful childhood. 00:01:01.787 --> 00:01:06.112 But on reaching adolescence, things got complicated, of course. 00:01:07.118 --> 00:01:08.750 I got full of zits, 00:01:09.340 --> 00:01:11.701 and I began to devour literature 00:01:11.701 --> 00:01:14.839 and to participate in all manner of poetry contests. 00:01:16.217 --> 00:01:22.049 At school, I participated in a study done by the University of Psychology. 00:01:22.729 --> 00:01:25.456 100 teenagers were chosen at random. 00:01:25.976 --> 00:01:31.782 We were taken to the main hall and told to draw the human being. 00:01:32.179 --> 00:01:34.235 So far, so good. 00:01:35.365 --> 00:01:39.912 But don't ask me what was so special about my drawing. 00:01:40.342 --> 00:01:41.555 Don't ask me 00:01:41.555 --> 00:01:44.155 because to this day, I don't know. 00:01:44.645 --> 00:01:49.055 All I can tell you is that they came back to me three times. 00:01:50.511 --> 00:01:52.769 They'd make me do it over. 00:01:52.769 --> 00:01:54.399 And as I was drawing, 00:01:54.399 --> 00:01:57.480 I would hear them talking to the director of the Center, 00:01:58.650 --> 00:02:01.605 saying that my view of the human being was worrisome. 00:02:02.915 --> 00:02:06.651 I guess it was then that I stopped drawing. 00:02:07.859 --> 00:02:09.116 And I was lucky. 00:02:09.116 --> 00:02:11.178 I was 14 or 15 years old, 00:02:11.178 --> 00:02:16.272 and up to then, nobody had critisized my drawings. 00:02:17.949 --> 00:02:22.509 I had grown up in an environment that stimulated my creativity. 00:02:23.764 --> 00:02:27.428 And yet, the good grades, 00:02:28.664 --> 00:02:30.384 the poetry contests, 00:02:30.384 --> 00:02:32.385 those excellent grades, 00:02:33.760 --> 00:02:38.299 the psychological analysis of my drawing, and those good grades 00:02:38.635 --> 00:02:40.686 all managed to convince me. 00:02:43.016 --> 00:02:47.374 Convince me that I was not among the chosen. 00:02:48.264 --> 00:02:50.268 So I set aside my creativity, 00:02:50.688 --> 00:02:53.279 and dedicated myself to study and to work. 00:02:54.889 --> 00:02:59.423 Most of us here today have grown up deceived. 00:03:00.924 --> 00:03:05.441 Convinced that in a classroom of 25, 30, even 40 students 00:03:06.451 --> 00:03:09.505 perhaps only two had been blessed 00:03:09.505 --> 00:03:12.890 by that precious stone called "creativity." 00:03:13.501 --> 00:03:16.878 As for the rest of us, we had to get educated. 00:03:19.323 --> 00:03:24.023 During the schooling of my three children, I began to relive the whole process. 00:03:24.461 --> 00:03:25.965 How could it be? 00:03:26.408 --> 00:03:31.475 How could shool keep putting down their capacity to create? 00:03:31.475 --> 00:03:34.986 My God, almost 30 years had gone by, 00:03:34.986 --> 00:03:39.506 and in this aspect, I can assure you that nothing had changed. 00:03:41.376 --> 00:03:42.479 Some time later, 00:03:42.479 --> 00:03:46.758 I saw Ken Robinson's TED Talk about how schools kill creativity. 00:03:47.748 --> 00:03:49.711 That talk changed everything. 00:03:50.611 --> 00:03:55.255 I understood what I wanted and could contribute to society. 00:03:56.205 --> 00:03:57.701 And I planned it all. 00:03:57.701 --> 00:04:00.141 A job as Communication Manager, 00:04:00.141 --> 00:04:03.538 an excellent team, and a good salary. 00:04:04.468 --> 00:04:08.462 Once I'd made the decision, there I was. 00:04:09.728 --> 00:04:11.092 Alone, 00:04:12.052 --> 00:04:13.672 in a co-working space. 00:04:14.542 --> 00:04:17.611 I don't know why we insist on calling it co-working 00:04:17.611 --> 00:04:22.298 because there are few places in the world where you can feel so alone. 00:04:25.028 --> 00:04:28.971 I was concentrated behind my computer screen 00:04:28.971 --> 00:04:30.864 trying to give birth to the ideas 00:04:30.864 --> 00:04:34.208 that would give shape to the project that was about to begin. 00:04:35.518 --> 00:04:38.629 But I couldn't write a single line. 00:04:39.987 --> 00:04:41.148 I couldn't 00:04:41.148 --> 00:04:45.340 because before writing anything down, I needed to sprawl on the floor, 00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:49.491 get giant sheets of paper, find my colored pencils, 00:04:49.944 --> 00:04:53.924 and begin to draw and imagine all possible options. 00:04:54.424 --> 00:04:57.623 Smudge, make mistakes, 00:04:57.623 --> 00:05:03.237 and little by little, reconnect what formal education had broken in two. 00:05:05.069 --> 00:05:09.339 I assure you that I was stuck on square one. 00:05:11.059 --> 00:05:15.529 Stuck because my education had been compartmentalized. 00:05:16.266 --> 00:05:18.328 And that made me believe 00:05:18.328 --> 00:05:22.619 that before starting the project, I had to make a crucial decision. 00:05:23.429 --> 00:05:27.018 A life or death decision. 00:05:28.378 --> 00:05:31.774 I had to choose between art and literature. 00:05:32.844 --> 00:05:35.899 Between drawing or writing. 00:05:36.739 --> 00:05:38.918 And I couldn't. 00:05:39.888 --> 00:05:41.551 I couldn't, because for me, 00:05:41.551 --> 00:05:46.948 separating those two languages meant splitting myself, literally, in two. 00:05:48.158 --> 00:05:50.650 Can you imagine the situation? 00:05:50.650 --> 00:05:52.696 40 years. 00:05:52.696 --> 00:05:58.264 And feeling exactly the same way that any child feels 00:05:58.645 --> 00:06:03.796 who is asked to choose between the love of his father or the love of his mother. 00:06:06.377 --> 00:06:12.342 It was then, at that moment, that the idea of PictoWriting was born. 00:06:13.385 --> 00:06:15.412 Picto-Writing. 00:06:16.072 --> 00:06:19.993 I decided then to design a method NOTE Paragraph 00:06:20.553 --> 00:06:25.887 that would let children learn to write without having to stop drawing. 00:06:26.337 --> 00:06:29.894 On the contrary, it would use the potential that images have, 00:06:29.894 --> 00:06:32.137 especially their own drawings, 00:06:32.137 --> 00:06:35.730 as a tool to teach them how to write. 00:06:35.730 --> 00:06:39.884 Once I knew the educational innovation that I wanted to accomplish, 00:06:39.884 --> 00:06:41.888 I got to work. 00:06:41.888 --> 00:06:47.385 I contacted a bunch of illustrators, writers, schools, teachers, linguists, 00:06:47.385 --> 00:06:50.808 and we began to actively participate in classrooms. 00:06:52.038 --> 00:06:54.615 Do you know what I found? 00:06:54.615 --> 00:06:59.282 And what I keep finding day after day in all primary classrooms? 00:07:00.002 --> 00:07:02.216 A bunch of kids. 00:07:02.216 --> 00:07:05.803 A bunch of kids with broken hearts. 00:07:07.353 --> 00:07:11.610 Clinging, like shipwrecked castaways, to their rubber erasers. 00:07:13.021 --> 00:07:16.739 Don't be surprised if one of these days it's finally revealed 00:07:17.164 --> 00:07:21.869 that it's the Pro-Fab manufacturers that stock schools with so many erasers. 00:07:23.692 --> 00:07:27.540 I ask you to think for a moment of your own children. 00:07:28.470 --> 00:07:33.646 Remember when they were 3, 4, 5 years old. Before they started school. 00:07:34.203 --> 00:07:38.108 When children draw at that age, they're not afraid. 00:07:38.728 --> 00:07:40.340 They enjoy what they're doing, 00:07:40.340 --> 00:07:43.520 no matter what it is, or what anyone else thinks. 00:07:44.270 --> 00:07:48.893 Mind you, their drawing in no way tries to be a photocopy of reality. 00:07:49.885 --> 00:07:53.466 Rather, it's their unique interpretation of the world. 00:07:53.466 --> 00:07:57.681 And the most important thing is that when they draw, they're connected. 00:07:58.220 --> 00:08:02.280 If you ask them, they know very well what they're drawing and why. 00:08:03.380 --> 00:08:09.432 We are born knowing who we are, and wanting to express it in drawings. 00:08:10.336 --> 00:08:14.153 But suddenly we get to school. 00:08:14.153 --> 00:08:15.589 To elementary. 00:08:15.589 --> 00:08:19.221 And the only thing that matters is to learn how to write. 00:08:19.851 --> 00:08:22.959 To have good handwriting, to not get out of line, 00:08:22.959 --> 00:08:26.273 not make spelling mistakes ... 00:08:26.273 --> 00:08:30.023 From one day to the next, we grow up. 00:08:30.023 --> 00:08:32.451 And that's where the drama begins. 00:08:33.471 --> 00:08:38.611 Drawing, that emotional, universal language, 00:08:38.611 --> 00:08:42.516 stops being a learning tool. 00:08:43.306 --> 00:08:46.279 If you're lucky, you get to draw during art class, 00:08:46.279 --> 00:08:50.119 but mind you, the time has come to do it right. 00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:54.066 The time has come to start erasing. 00:08:54.696 --> 00:08:57.611 Welcome! Welcome, eraser! 00:08:57.611 --> 00:09:00.919 You will start by teaching us to erase our mistakes 00:09:00.919 --> 00:09:02.814 instead of learning from them. 00:09:03.364 --> 00:09:06.723 And little by little you'll end up censuring 00:09:06.723 --> 00:09:11.033 everything that was special about each and every one of us. 00:09:12.734 --> 00:09:17.231 When a 6-, 7-, or 8-year-old child is learning how to write, 00:09:17.820 --> 00:09:21.213 and for whatever reason their accompanying adult 00:09:21.213 --> 00:09:24.694 prematurely corrects whatever the child is creating, 00:09:26.735 --> 00:09:28.791 judges whatever the child is producing 00:09:28.791 --> 00:09:31.447 before giving him or her time 00:09:31.447 --> 00:09:34.826 to create the story he or she wants to tell us, 00:09:34.826 --> 00:09:38.967 in that way inviting him to gain insecurity and begin to erase, 00:09:38.967 --> 00:09:42.876 what message do you think the child receives? 00:09:43.656 --> 00:09:47.524 We teach them too early to not be themselves. 00:09:48.410 --> 00:09:52.247 And to desperately seek out the adult's approval. 00:09:53.485 --> 00:09:55.310 In less than one year, 00:09:55.670 --> 00:09:58.950 they will all be drawing and writing exactly the same. 00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:02.229 Because as you can imagine, 00:10:02.229 --> 00:10:07.079 drawing is the first language we take away from them. 00:10:07.079 --> 00:10:09.814 But all the others follow. 00:10:10.704 --> 00:10:14.009 Of course, the time has come to teach them to read and write. 00:10:14.009 --> 00:10:17.311 But not at any cost. 00:10:19.161 --> 00:10:24.340 I want to propose a simple change in the education of your children. 00:10:25.446 --> 00:10:30.257 In the face of the visual bombardment that children grow up with today, 00:10:30.260 --> 00:10:33.102 let's include gymnastics of imagination. 00:10:33.442 --> 00:10:37.574 And for that, it's very important that they not stop drawing. 00:10:37.574 --> 00:10:40.729 That they grow in both languages. 00:10:40.729 --> 00:10:43.883 PictoWriting gives us that opportunity. 00:10:43.883 --> 00:10:45.887 It allows us to teach them to write. 00:10:45.887 --> 00:10:47.348 Yes, to write. 00:10:47.348 --> 00:10:49.719 But at the same time we stimulate their creativity 00:10:49.719 --> 00:10:53.114 and their capacity for reading and producing images 00:10:53.114 --> 00:10:56.324 without all that emotional baggage. 00:10:58.384 --> 00:11:02.675 PictoWriting is a method that above all, and most importantly, 00:11:03.442 --> 00:11:07.077 respects the child's creative process. 00:11:08.637 --> 00:11:11.234 Throughout these last five years, 00:11:11.234 --> 00:11:14.795 we have given PictoWriting training to nearly 300 teachers. 00:11:14.797 --> 00:11:19.127 And more than 3,500 children have already grown up using this method. 00:11:20.214 --> 00:11:23.462 The results are spectacular. 00:11:24.462 --> 00:11:27.613 Spectacular because of everything that gets transformed. 00:11:28.403 --> 00:11:31.327 When you change the way you teach them to write, 00:11:31.327 --> 00:11:35.363 you also change the way that teachers see their students. 00:11:36.093 --> 00:11:39.508 Not long ago, a teacher was telling us, 00:11:39.508 --> 00:11:40.663 "Thank you. 00:11:40.663 --> 00:11:46.073 I thought I had five good students. Now I know I have 25." 00:11:48.213 --> 00:11:53.245 97% of kids have loved PictoWriting. 00:11:53.246 --> 00:11:59.208 And because of this, they write longer, richer, and better texts. 00:11:59.208 --> 00:12:01.229 Now it turns out 00:12:01.229 --> 00:12:05.021 that learning how to write isn't a chore or an insurmountable obstacle. 00:12:05.761 --> 00:12:07.953 Instead, they don't even want to go to recess 00:12:07.953 --> 00:12:10.486 because they're writing and drawing. 00:12:10.486 --> 00:12:11.723 Oh, friend. 00:12:11.723 --> 00:12:15.785 You see, creating stories is the closest thing to playing. 00:12:16.725 --> 00:12:21.821 And 42% of those students have told us in their own handwriting 00:12:22.427 --> 00:12:25.733 that this method has made them feel special. 00:12:27.663 --> 00:12:29.862 What a difference could be made in the world 00:12:30.542 --> 00:12:36.205 if we were to grow up knowing that each and every one of us 00:12:36.619 --> 00:12:42.554 is unique and special with an amazing story to tell. 00:12:43.459 --> 00:12:44.758 Thank you. 00:12:44.758 --> 00:12:46.658 (Applause)