WEBVTT

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I grew up unaware,

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like many of you, I imagine,

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that my heart was broken.

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I had been an excellent student.

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The kind that didn't need 
to open a single book

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to get a bunch of A's.

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I had loving, open parents

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who never tried to tell me 
which way I had to go.

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A grandmother that would hide
chocolate bars under her bra cups.

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Five brothers, a dog, two cats,

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and a parrot named Paco.

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It was a real madhouse.

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I confess, I had a wonderful childhood.

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But on reaching adolescence,
things got complicated, of course.

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I got full of zits,

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and I began to devour literature

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and to participate
in all manner of poetry contests.

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At school, I participated in a study
done by the University of Psychology.

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100 teenagers were chosen at random.

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We were taken to the main hall
and told to draw the human being.

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So far, so good.

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But don't ask me what was 
so special about my drawing.

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Don't ask me

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because to this day, I don't know.

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All I can tell you is that they
came back to me three times.

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They'd make me do it over.

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And as I was drawing,

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I would hear them talking 
to the director of the Center,

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saying that my view
of the human being was worrisome.

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I guess it was then
that I stopped drawing.

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And I was lucky.

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I was 14 or 15 years old,

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and up to then,
nobody had critisized my drawings.

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I had grown up in an environment
that stimulated my creativity.

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And yet, the good grades,

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the poetry contests,

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those excellent grades,

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the psychological analysis of my drawing,
and those good grades

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all managed to convince me.

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Convince me that I
was not among the chosen.

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So I set aside my creativity,

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and dedicated myself 
to study and to work.

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Most of us here today
have grown up deceived.

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Convinced that in a classroom 
of 25, 30, even 40 students

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perhaps only two had been blessed

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by that precious stone
called "creativity."

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As for the rest of us, 
we had to get educated.

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During the schooling of my three children,
I began to relive the whole process.

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How could it be?

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How could shool keep putting down 
their capacity to create?

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My God, almost 30 years had gone by,

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and in this aspect, I can assure you 
that nothing had changed.

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Some time later,

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I saw Ken Robinson's TED Talk
about how schools kill creativity.

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That talk changed everything.

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I understood what I wanted
and could contribute to society.

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And I planned it all.

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A job as Communication Manager,

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an excellent team, and a good salary.

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Once I'd made the decision, there I was.

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Alone,

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in a co-working space.

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I don't know why we insist
on calling it co-working

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because there are few places in the world
where you can feel so alone.

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I was concentrated 
behind my computer screen

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trying to give birth to the ideas

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that would give shape 
to the project that was about to begin.

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But I couldn't write a single line.

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I couldn't

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because before writing anything down,
I needed to sprawl on the floor,

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get giant sheets of paper,
find my colored pencils,

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and begin to draw
and imagine all possible options.

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Smudge, make mistakes,

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and little by little, reconnect 
what formal education had broken in two.

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I assure you that I was 
stuck on square one.

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Stuck because my education 
had been compartmentalized.

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And that made me believe

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that before starting the project,
I had to make a crucial decision.

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A life or death decision.

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I had to choose
between art and literature.

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Between drawing or writing.

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And I couldn't.

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I couldn't, because for me,

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separating those two languages
meant splitting myself, literally, in two.

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Can you imagine the situation?

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40 years.

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And feeling exactly the same way
that any child feels

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who is asked to choose between the love 
of his father or the love of his mother.

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It was then, at that moment,
that the idea of PictoWriting was born.

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Picto-Writing.

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I decided then to design a method

NOTE Paragraph

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that would let children learn to write
without having to stop drawing.

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On the contrary, it would use 
the potential that images have,

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especially their own drawings,

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as a tool to teach them how to write.

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Once I knew the educational innovation
that I wanted to accomplish,

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I got to work.

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I contacted a bunch of illustrators, 
writers, schools, teachers, linguists,

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and we began to actively 
participate in classrooms.

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Do you know what I found?

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And what I keep finding day after day
in all primary classrooms?

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A bunch of kids.

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A bunch of kids with broken hearts.

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Clinging, like shipwrecked castaways,
to their rubber erasers.

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Don't be surprised if one of these days
it's finally revealed

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that it's the Pro-Fab manufacturers 
that stock schools with so many erasers.

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I ask you to think for a moment
of your own children.

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Remember when they were 3, 4, 5 years old.
Before they started school.

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When children draw at that age,
they're not afraid.

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They enjoy what they're doing,

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no matter what it is,
or what anyone else thinks.

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Mind you, their drawing in no way
tries to be a photocopy of reality.

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Rather, it's their unique 
interpretation of the world.

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And the most important thing is
that when they draw, they're connected.

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If you ask them, they know very well
what they're drawing and why.

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We are born knowing who we are,
and wanting to express it in drawings.

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But suddenly we get to school.

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To elementary.

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And the only thing that matters
is to learn how to write.

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To have good handwriting,
to not get out of line,

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not make spelling mistakes ...

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From one day to the next, we grow up.

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And that's where the drama begins.

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Drawing, that emotional, 
universal language,

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stops being a learning tool.

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If you're lucky, you get to draw
during art class,

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but mind you, 
the time has come to do it right.

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The time has come to start erasing.

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Welcome! Welcome, eraser!

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You will start by teaching us
to erase our mistakes

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instead of learning from them.

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And little by little 
you'll end up censuring

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everything that was special
about each and every one of us.

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When a 6-, 7-, or 8-year-old child
is learning how to write,

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and for whatever reason 
their accompanying adult

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prematurely corrects 
whatever the child is creating,

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judges whatever the child is producing

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before giving him or her time

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to create the story 
he or she wants to tell us,

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in that way inviting him to gain 
insecurity and begin to erase,

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what message do you think 
the child receives?

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We teach them too early 
to not be themselves.

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And to desperately seek out 
the adult's approval.

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In less than one year,

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they will all be drawing
and writing exactly the same.

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Because as you can imagine,

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drawing is the first language 
we take away from them.

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But all the others follow.

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Of course, the time has come 
to teach them to read and write.

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But not at any cost.

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I want to propose a simple change
in the education of your children.

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In the face of the visual bombardment 
that children grow up with today,

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let's include gymnastics of imagination.

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And for that, it's very important 
that they not stop drawing.

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That they grow in both languages.

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PictoWriting gives us that opportunity.

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It allows us to teach them to write.

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Yes, to write.

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But at the same time
we stimulate their creativity

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and their capacity for reading
and producing images

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without all that emotional baggage.

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PictoWriting is a method that above all,
and most importantly,

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respects the child's creative process.

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Throughout these last five years,

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we have given PictoWriting training
to nearly 300 teachers.

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And more than 3,500 children
have already grown up using this method.

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The results are spectacular.

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Spectacular because of everything 
that gets transformed.

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When you change the way
you teach them to write,

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you also change the way
that teachers see their students.

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Not long ago, a teacher was telling us,

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"Thank you.

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I thought I had five good students.
Now I know I have 25."

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97% of kids have loved PictoWriting.

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And because of this, they write longer, 
richer, and better texts.

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Now it turns out

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that learning how to write isn't a chore
or an insurmountable obstacle.

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Instead, they don't even
want to go to recess

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because they're writing and drawing.

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Oh, friend.

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You see, creating stories
is the closest thing to playing.

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And 42% of those students
have told us in their own handwriting

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that this method 
has made them feel special.

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What a difference
could be made in the world

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if we were to grow up knowing
that each and every one of us

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is unique and special
with an amazing story to tell.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)