Pictowriting and creative writing | Roser Ballesteros | TEDxGracia

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Pencil, paper and eraser. Many times, using erasers makes children limit their communication. What about you? At what age did you stop drawing?

Roser Ballesteros studied Art History at the University of Cologne (Kunsthistoriches Institut, Universität su Köln) and two years of Political Science at the Complutense University of Madrid. An avid reader of Juvenile and YA fiction, she has written several stories and is now working on her first novel. After getting to know the projects that have been developing in recent years in the English-speaking world that focus on involving literature and editing in education, she founded the VoxPrima project in Barcelona in January of 2011.

"I am a mother of a dyslexic son. My concern for his learning difficulties and a special interest for plastic arts led me to question whether it would be possible to use visual language in the improvement of written expression during Primary Education. That's how PictoWriting came about."

I grew up unaware,

like many of you, I imagine,

that my heart was broken.

I had been an excellent student.

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

to get a bunch of A's.

I had loving, open parents

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

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

Five brothers, a dog, two cats,

and a parrot named Paco.

It was a real madhouse.

I confess, I had a wonderful childhood.

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

I got full of zits,

and I began to devour literature

and to participate
in all manner of poetry contests.

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

100 teenagers were chosen at random.

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

So far, so good.

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

Don't ask me

because to this day, I don't know.

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

They'd make me do it over.

And as I was drawing,

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

saying that my view
of the human being was worrisome.

I guess it was then
that I stopped drawing.

And I was lucky.

I was 14 or 15 years old,

and up to then,
nobody had critisized my drawings.

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

And yet, the good grades,

the poetry contests,

those excellent grades,

the psychological analysis of my drawing,
and those good grades

all managed to convince me.

Convince me that I
was not among the chosen.

So I set aside my creativity,

and dedicated myself
to study and to work.

Most of us here today
have grown up deceived.

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

perhaps only two had been blessed

by that precious stone
called "creativity."

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

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

How could it be?

How could shool keep putting down
their capacity to create?

My God, almost 30 years had gone by,

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

Some time later,

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

That talk changed everything.

I understood what I wanted
and could contribute to society.

And I planned it all.

A job as Communication Manager,

an excellent team, and a good salary.

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

Alone,

in a co-working space.

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

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

I was concentrated
behind my computer screen

trying to give birth to the ideas

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

But I couldn't write a single line.

I couldn't

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

get giant sheets of paper,
find my colored pencils,

and begin to draw
and imagine all possible options.

Smudge, make mistakes,

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

I assure you that I was
stuck on square one.

Stuck because my education
had been compartmentalized.

And that made me believe

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

A life or death decision.

I had to choose
between art and literature.

Between drawing or writing.

And I couldn't.

I couldn't, because for me,

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

Can you imagine the situation?

40 years.

And feeling exactly the same way
that any child feels

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

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

Picto-Writing.

I decided then to design a method

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

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

especially their own drawings,

as a tool to teach them how to write.

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

I got to work.

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

and we began to actively
participate in classrooms.

Do you know what I found?

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

A bunch of kids.

A bunch of kids with broken hearts.

Clinging, like shipwrecked castaways,
to their rubber erasers.

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

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

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

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

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

They enjoy what they're doing,

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

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

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

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

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

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

But suddenly we get to school.

To elementary.

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

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

not make spelling mistakes ...

From one day to the next, we grow up.

And that's where the drama begins.

Drawing, that emotional,
universal language,

stops being a learning tool.

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

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

The time has come to start erasing.

Welcome! Welcome, eraser!

You will start by teaching us
to erase our mistakes

instead of learning from them.

And little by little
you'll end up censuring

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

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

and for whatever reason
their accompanying adult

prematurely corrects
whatever the child is creating,

judges whatever the child is producing

before giving him or her time

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

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

what message do you think
the child receives?

We teach them too early
to not be themselves.

And to desperately seek out
the adult's approval.

In less than one year,

they will all be drawing
and writing exactly the same.

Because as you can imagine,

drawing is the first language
we take away from them.

But all the others follow.

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

But not at any cost.

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

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

let's include gymnastics of imagination.

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

That they grow in both languages.

PictoWriting gives us that opportunity.

It allows us to teach them to write.

Yes, to write.

But at the same time
we stimulate their creativity

and their capacity for reading
and producing images

without all that emotional baggage.

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

respects the child's creative process.

Throughout these last five years,

we have given PictoWriting training
to nearly 300 teachers.

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

The results are spectacular.

Spectacular because of everything
that gets transformed.

When you change the way
you teach them to write,

you also change the way
that teachers see their students.

Not long ago, a teacher was telling us,

"Thank you.

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

97% of kids have loved PictoWriting.

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

Now it turns out

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

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

because they're writing and drawing.

Oh, friend.

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

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

that this method
has made them feel special.

What a difference
could be made in the world

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

is unique and special
with an amazing story to tell.

Thank you.

(Applause)