and like all really really great stories
this one goes back a long long long way
back to the time when the people of
Aboriginal Australia told one another
stories about the land where they lived
the plants the animals the geography the
floor in fauna and when present-day
researchers oral historians linguists
looked back at these stories both from
generation to generation to generation
by these ancient storytellers what they
found was remarkable this is a shot of
the Great Barrier Reef today an aerial
shot off the coast of Australia and what
these historians and oral researchers
and scientists discovered was that these
stories told by the ancient people who
lived in that part of Australia were
surprisingly accurate they had details
of the land the geography the topography
how the land looked like when they lived
there that was totally accurate to what
the land looked like now except that
some of it was underwater so when you
think about this power of storytelling
and narrative I want you to think about
the fact that it can change how we view
both the external world right the world
that we see around us and the internal
world how does this make how it makes
changes how storytelling and powerful
narrative can make changes in our brains
permanent changes and I started to think
about this as I looked at storytelling
and narrative in the classroom and what
thing I noticed was that we all have a
story something that is unique to
something that’s highly personal it’s
probably something that you’ve never
ever forgotten I want you to all think
for a minute about what that story is
that is unique to you if we were having
a conversation about it you might say I
don’t know why I remember this but so
think about that story just for a minute
and hold it in your head because we’re
gonna come back to it a little bit later
after I’ve talked a little bit more
about why I think storytelling a
narrative or so important who we are as
human beings and how it is that we learn
I started to think about this idea of
connections right we make connections in
our brains and our brains as we know are
extraordinarily complicated a hundred
billion million nerve cell 100 billion
nerve cells 3.2 million miles or
kilometers of wiring in our brains
that’s all making a hundred billion
million connections that’s pretty
complicated and we have a lot of our
learning that transpires that goes
through neuronal pathways in our brains
that looks like this
and looking at that vast human processor
got me to thinking about how it is that
we do ultimately learn and remember how
do things make their way through those
pathways and this idea of storytelling
is so important I believe to how it is
that we remember and how it is that we
ultimately learn one of the things that
people have done is look at stories
across cultures write stories are part
of every culture all cultures have their
story they have their overarching
narrative which windows its way down
into smaller and smaller truths the
civilization the country the classroom
and those stories can be a shortcut to
how it is that we do learn how we manage
to retain information as we go forward I
teach a class at Carey up the street all
business communications and one of the
things that my students do in class is
we have exercises where they’ll pretend
to be lets say the CEO of a beleaguered
company volkswagen malaysia airlines
there’s a lot of examples that we use
and one person will take on the role of
the CEO another might be the reporter
someone else might be the chief
information officer the PR person and as
I watch my students doing these
exercises I can literally see the
connections being made in their brains
they are starting to take on the role of
the CEO of the reporter of the
journalists and as they do this it’s
this idea of the aha moment the the
light bulb going off you’re learning
something you’re not just having someone
talk to you about it or reading it in a
book or taking it in a test you’re
becoming emotionally invested in the
story you are becoming the storyteller
and you are learning as a result and I
think that this is so important now
especially given the diversity we have
in the world of higher education I think
I read somewhere that the number of
international students in the United
States is expected to roughly double
every 15 years going forward double
that’s astonishing that’s an amazing
number and I can tell you my own
personal story when it is that I felt
that I learned to write I was in the
seventh grade and a teacher assigned us
we had the assignment of writing a poem
okay and this poem was going to appear
in the school literary magazine
and if it was deemed acceptable get an
honorable mention in the Atlantic
Monthly so here’s my poem I sit in my
lonely room as the wind howls outside
blowing dead things through the night
now the fact that I can still remember
that poem even if I can’t remember the
teacher the classroom what year it was
shows that these stories and narratives
are highly personal these are the things
that you remember you remember stories
and narratives that are highly personal
to you and it’s ultimately again how it
is that we learn and when we start to
think about this idea of storytelling
and narrative it is literally all around
us it is everywhere don’t believe me ask
a group just a random group at some
point to shout out some of their
favorite songs you don’t have to do it
today but shout out some of their
favorite songs jazz hip hop classical
rock it doesn’t actually matter because
what you find is that all of these
stories share something in common write
a narrative there is a narrative flow to
these stories often what I call the arc
of the story I told my students all the
time the arc of the story every story
has a beginning a middle and an end and
the exercise that I gave an example of
the CEO of the beleaguered company we’re
talking about a classic arc of the story
narrative it’s a redemption narrative
right you come out you say I’m deeply
saddened and sorry that this happened to
our wonderful company but you know this
is how it happened and we’re doing this
and then we’re going to move forward
then you come back to the beginning and
you apologize again and you talk about
how you’re going to move forward and fix
everything
classic arc of the story classic
Redemption narrative and as I said this
is everywhere now when we look around
you’ll see these narratives are
everywhere popular music this will date
me
the song by
Don McClane called American Pie and it
goes like this so bye bye miss American
Pie drove my chevy to the levee but the
levee was dry and them good old boys
were drinking whiskey and rye singing
this will be the day that I die this
will be the day that I die bump bump
bump right so everybody knows how that
goes and now some of you are gonna have
that stuck in your heads all day long
I’m apologizing really sorry and some of
you’re like I never heard that song but
the thing about that song is it again is
a classic arc of the story narrative in
five lines right you start something
something’s happening you’re going
somewhere you’re going to levee you’re
drinking whiskey and rye and then the
conclusion the tournament which in this
case what’s the new men
the ultimate tournament it’s death right
you can’t get much more arc of the story
than that and the song does something
else in its five lines that I think is
really important about how we learn and
how we remember it contains lines and
phrases of alternate pacing right the
idea of its kind of singing song II
you’ve heard that term you know done –
done – done – done but it is ultimately
also again key to how we remember why
things stick in our brains why we
remember them and it’s not just music
it’s television movies think of all the
popular television shows that are out
there Big Bang Theory Gilmore Girls a
whole bunch of other shows and these
shows aren’t just popular in the United
States they’re popular around the globe
when we talk about movies and shows we
now talk about global box office right
we don’t talk about just in the United
States or even North America anymore
because these things are so ubiquitous
they become cultural narratives but
broad cultural narratives global
cultural narratives I can think of a
story I just or a movie I just saw
recently on a how many people
saw shape of water fabulous movie and
the narrative in that movie was
astonishing and there are other movies
and television shows that are like this
and streaming video by the way is only
going to exacerbate this trend going
forward and I want to talk before I
forget to do this I want to mention the
thing about music too because music is
being used in all kinds of ways that you
may not have even thought about the
National Institutes of Health right now
is looking at using music using songs to
help reach people who have suffered
strokes right they’ve had they’ve had
parts of their brains rapidly damaged
and they are actually looking at NIH now
about using songs to go around the
damaged portions of the brain because as
I said songs music TV excite neuronal
pathways neuronal networks in our brains
and so if you’ve suffered a stroke
someone has suffered a stroke you can
actually sometimes communicate through
music around these damaged portions of
the brain and this is a pretty intense
study that they’ve only recently started
doing but it speaks again to this power
of not just storytelling and narrative
but also music in how we learn and how
we remember so when we talk about movies
we’re often talking about a broader
story right this was popularized by
Christopher boggler I think in 1998
called the hero’s journey based on
Joseph Campbell’s idea of the monomyth
classic movie format by the way shape of
water Harry Potter Star Wars the hero
leaves the ordinary world there’s a call
to adventure the refusal of the call no
I don’t want to go the meeting of the
mentor okay you know b1 Kenobi or
whoever the crossing the threshold then
the tests the Allies the enemies the
approach the ordeal the death and
rebirth the reward seizing the sword the
elixir and then the end the resurrection
the return
with the lightsaber these spell and this
is again when you look for this kind of
a narrative it is all around you it’s in
its embedded in popular culture and
again it’s becoming increasingly
culturally ubiquitous it’s increasingly
everywhere and global so I use these
examples not to necessarily talk about
the fact that in class when I’m teaching
I’m gonna be we’re gonna be watching
movies or watching TV shows or having
heroic journeys but I use it to talk
about how we learn with my students and
I also look at it as shorthand it is a
way to get on a common platform quickly
and sometimes introduce pretty complex
concepts because I think in the end
storytelling a narrative can change the
way we think and the way we view the
world I would argue that poets musicians
storytellers they are akin to brain
surgeons actually altering how we think
not with a scalpel but by wielding words
that make connections in our brains that
change the way that we think and the way
we view the world both externally and
internally so I want you to think about
when you’re trying to reach a group of
people students people in the office
think about this idea of the arc of the
story right the arc of the story and how
it makes connections in our brains how
it helps us retain information and how
it alternately is what helps us to learn
thank you [Applause]