Why education is the only way | Tabata Amaral | TEDxUFRGS

What is needed to transform the reality of a country? Further on, what is most essential for this transformation? In this talk, Tabata Amaral defends education as the answer to these questions, sharing her story with the public.

After winning more than 30 medals in scholastic olympiads - from physics to linguistics - Tabata received a scholarship from Harvard, where she now studies Political Science and Astrophysics. She is one of the authors of the manifesto "Mapa do Buraco," a high-impact project that proposes changes for education in Brazil.

Education is the only way
to turn Brazil into the country we want.

Looking at 67 countries,

Brazil is in 60th place
in worldwide education rankings.

Looking at 61 countries,

we are in 56th place in competitiveness.

When we look at Brazilian
public school students,

only 23% have the expertise

they need in reading
and text interpretation.

This number is only 11%
in problem resolution.

"Movimento Mapa Educação" is an initiative
of young Brazilians who join together

to bring civil society
into the educational debate,

so that, together, we can fight
for quality education in our country.

Mapa's story is much like my own.

I come from a humble family.

My father didn't finish elementary school.

My mother only finished
high school a few years ago.

Nevertheless, they worked hard
so that my brother and I could study

and give our best to our studies.

For a long time, I wanted
to work with handicrafts.

Until the fifth and sixth grades,
I studied in public schools,

and I embroidered and painted
to help my family at home.

However, in the fifth grade,
I participated in the first

Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad
for Public Schools, OBMEP.

OBMEP was the first great
opportunity I had in my life

to really see that simple public policies

could have an enormous impact
on the lives of millions of people.

In the first two OBMEPs,
during my fifth and sixth grade years,

I received awards,

including a scholarship to attend
an incredible private school in São Paulo.

I lived on the southern outskirts;
the school was downtown.

It was then that I realized how Brazil
is marked by enormous inequalities.

They were two completely different worlds,

an hour and twenty minutes apart
by bus and subway.

When I got to the school,
I marveled how different everything was.

I studied a lot and stood out in my class,

and, at the end of the year,

I was invited to a ceremony
for all the school's students

who had done olympiads
and been awarded.

I hadn't done any olympiads,
but I was invited just the same.

When I got there,
they had a simple black shirt

that they gave to all the students
who had won awards.

I didn't get that t-shirt, and I felt sad.

As stupid as it seems, I started to think,

"OK, I had an incredible opportunity

that all my friends who stayed
in public school didn't have;

I got here and I studied,
but what did I do that was special?

I didn't do anything extra -

just the regular things
in regular classes,

and I didn't do everything I could have."

Since I'm very sensitive, I cried a lot,

and my father, who was at the ceremony,
came to talk with me.

Right then, I promised him,

"Dad, next year,
I'm going to get the t-shirt."

I know it sounds silly,
but this really was my incentive.

And it wasn't the only promise
I made that day.

A lady from MIT was at that same ceremony,

and she told us,

"Brazilian students can study
in incredible American schools."

And she showed a super-cool video

that had a chocolate club
and a salsa club at MIT.

I didn't speak English,
so I didn't get it all,

but my eyes were shining bright.

I told my father,

"You know what? I'm going to study
at an American university someday."

I don't know who was crazier:

me, making all these crazy promises
without a hope in the world,

or my father who said,

"You'll go, for sure, you can do this!"

The following year, I studied a lot -
I had to get that shirt -

and I participated in all the olympiads,

and in eighth grade, I won eight medals.

I was super confident.

I got to the ceremony,
and I found a new dream:

I saw that some Brazilian students
could represent Brazil

in international science competitions.

So I decided

that one day I was going to represent
Brazil in an international competition.

I studied and studied,

and in my second year, I went
to my first competition, in China.

It was my first time away from Brazil,

and I was representing Brazil

in the Fourth International Olympiad
of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

It was incredible!

I made friends from all the countries

and reaffirmed that I had
to study in the United States

to have that international experience.

However, some things started
to become more difficult at home.

My father always had addiction problems,

it was getting worse,

and he had also developed
some psychological illnesses.

So, the financial situation,
already not good, got more complicated.

We didn't have enough to pay for food
or for transportation to school.

So I was staying away
from some school activities.

But, once again, somebody believed in me.

This time, it wasn't my father;
it was a teacher, Professor Rubens.

He saw that I was
staying away from activities,

talked with the board of directors,

and the next day,

the school directors and my mother
decided that I would stay in a hotel.

Even though it seemed so incredible

that I'd live in a hotel
five minutes from school

and have my meals and transport paid,

I was very sad

because my family was going
through a very difficult moment.

I was simply abandoning my family.

But anyway, I went to the hotel

and to keep my commitment,
I decided I would do two things:

First, I'd dedicate myself
even more to my studies.

Second: I'd give more time
to the VOA project.

VOA is "Vontade Olimpica de Aprender,"
Olympic Will to Learn.

Before high school, I co-founded
this project with some friends.

Every weekend, we prepared
public school students

for the science olympiad.

I think that VOA resulted
from the profound realization

that I was having
incredible opportunities,

but this wasn't true for most Brazilians.

So, I had to do something

because, if I was chosen
to receive so many blessings,

I needed to do something with them.

Well, I kept studying and studying,
and, in my third year of high school,

I got to represent Brazil
in four more international olympiads.

I went to Poland and Turkey,

and multiplied my dream
of representing our country by five.

It was an incredible time,
and also a very difficult time:

I had to take entrance exams
in both the United States and Brazil,

and there were the olympiads.

Many times, I wanted to quit.

I was so scared of it all.

But I had one thing:

There were many people fighting
for these dreams with me.

It was no longer just Tabata's dream
of going to the United States -

it was the dream of my teachers,

my family, and my friends.

So, I continued.

The next year, I was accepted
at University of São Paulo in physics,

I started to work as a chemistry
and astronomy teacher,

and I started to take college classes.

Then, on the 8th of March, 2012,

I received the best news of my life:

l was accepted at Harvard University
with a 100% scholarship.

I can't tell you how happy I was that day.

It was the realization of my dream
of more than five years.

I was super happy and I called my parents.

Each had a reaction that impacted me.

Each responded in their own way.

My mother answered the phone and said,
"Have you eaten? Are you well? My God!"

super worried about me.

My father, in his own calm way, said,
"I always said this would happen.

You should've listened to me more
and not been so stressed."

So that day was remarkable for me.

Then, only four days later,

I received the worst news of my life:

all the addictions that had made
my father suffer for so long

had killed him.

I think anyone who has ever lost
a family member understands

that everything stops making sense -

the American universities,
my dreams, my studies -

And then I left college
because my mother became unemployed.

I started to work more

and gave up the idea
of going to the United States.

"Who cares, you know?
It doesn't make sense anymore."

And well, time passed,

and, in a month, I had to decide
if I would go study there or not.

I had decided not to go,

but, once again,
an important person in my life,

Silvinha, from my school, said,
"You're not doing this."

She quickly bought me a ticket
to the United States, and said,

"This weekend, you'll go,

and you'll understand
the importance of your decision.

And if, when you arrive, you decide
you don't want to do it, OK,

but you aren't quitting
so easily, no way."

I quickly visited the six universities

that had accepted me
with full scholarships.

When I got there, I was amazed.

Everything was so incredible
and the opportunities were so marvelous.

How could I say no to that?

Going there, I realized,

would be my way of changing
education in my country

and my way of changing
the life of my family.

So on the first day of May 2012,

I decided, yes, I would go to the US,
and I would choose Harvard University.

Since then, much has happened.

I've studied a lot and worked even more.

I started studying astrophysics
because I wanted to be a scientist,

and later I changed to political science.

Astrophysics became my minor.

I'd visited many countries.

I'd already done a ton of things.

And, after all this,
I discovered my biggest dream:

One day, Brazil will have
the best public education in the world.

And that's it - the best -
not one of the best, but the best.

So I had this big dream,
but what could I do?

I talked with Daniel Vargas,
a great mentor, and I said,

"Look, I want to change
education in Brazil,

but what can I do?"

He gave me two excellent suggestions.

The first: Everybody he'd seen having
a super cool impact on the world

didn't wait 40 or 50 years to get started,

but instead began early,

when people thought
they couldn't do anything.

He said, "Start before you leave Harvard."

The second: Every good idea
has an even better team behind it.

He said, "Even if you don't know
exactly what you'll do,

assemble your team - the ideas will come."

So I called on two good friends,
Lígia and Renan,

and said, "Hey guys,
we have to change education in Brazil,

let's do something."

We said, "Very well,
we're not experts in education.

Let's do some research.

Let's study and see what we can do

that will convince young people
to fight for education

and to understand education's importance."

First, we did research:

We interviewed more than 100 people,

and for months we studied many documents

to better understand
Brazil's current educational situation

and what should be done.

The research was so enormous,
it ended up being a manifesto.

Last year, we released the manifesto
"O Mapa do Buraco," Map of the Hole,

pointing out the main problems
of Brazilian education

and what was already working well
in various locations.

As it was election season, we presented
the "O Mapa do Buraco" challenge.

In it, we invited candidates
from all over Brazil

to respond to this question by video:

"If you are elected, what will you do
for Brazilian education?"

Candidates sent the videos,
and challenged three others

to do the same.

We also put together, in partnership
with Avaaz Brasil and FGV,

the only presidential debate
there would be about education.

We know that education
didn't decide those elections

and that education issues
are increasingly being ignored in Brazil,

so we decided to change our name.

We became "Movimento Mapa Educação,"
the Education Map Movement.

The objective remained the same:

engage civil society and young people
to fight for higher quality education.

Today Movimento Mapa Educação,
or Mapa for short, has three objectives.

The first is to engage and inform people
through social networks.

So daily on our Facebook page,

we provide education news,
a summary of articles.

We also pick out federal laws
being voted on that affect education

and allow our public
to vote on our Facebook page,

so that a person really understands
that our education isn't well.

It's one thing we can do securely

to guarantee a better future
for our country.

The second objective is
to create a network of people

who have ideas and projects
to change education,

so they can connect
with one another and others.

We started "Desafio Mapa Education,"
Education Map Challenge,

and got 170 subscriptions

from young Brazillians
who had marvelous ideas.

We selected the 100 projects
with the biggest impact,

and on the 29th of August, 2015,
we held the first Mapa conference,

bringing together 100 young Brazilians,
business people, education officials,

and the foundations
that really make education happen.

The third objective -
one of the most important for Mapa -

is to listen to the voice of young people

and know what young people
think about education -

what works and doesn't,
what motivates and doesn't.

For this, we have an online survey

to really listen to the voices
of young people and amplify them.

Today, Mapa has more than 40 coordinators

and has supporters around Brazil
and around the whole world.

Our objective is the same.

I think that everything
I learned from Mapa and from my life

has shown me that, really,
in the words of Nelson Mandela,

"Education is the most powerful weapon
which you can use to change the world."

Remember that day I went
to the second medalist ceremony

with my eight medals, totally happy?

That year, I found out

that you don't need
to have a medal to get a shirt -

even if I hadn't done the olympiads,
I'd have gotten a t-shirt.

But I had discovered that that, often,

the path you take is much more important
than the destination you reach.

It's because of this that I truly believe

education is the only way

for Brazil to become
the country we want it to be.

This is the only way we can break
through all the inequalities

we have in Brazil,

so that every Brazilian,

independent of who they are
or where they live,

can have a quality education.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)