Key takeaways:

- Kendall Haven’s Background: A master storyteller who performed for over seven million people, founded story science, led research for the National Storytelling Association, and is a distinguished scholar at Stanford and Johns Hopkins, with 34 books and 20 awards on storytelling.

- Neuroscience of Story: Haven’s 40 years of research, including fMRI and EEG studies, show the human brain is hardwired to process information in story terms via a neural story net, making sense of the world subconsciously before conscious awareness.

- Story Elements: Eight core elements drive story comprehension: character, character traits, goal, motive, problems, conflicts, risk, and danger, with stories revolving around characters struggling to achieve goals against obstacles.

- Make Sense Mandate: Humans automatically interpret information to make sense using story structures, as demonstrated by Haven’s conversational examples (e.g., “Where’s John?” and “I saw a green VW”), where listeners infer connections subconsciously.

- Educational Impact: Teaching story elements consciously enhances learning across subjects, with research showing improved math scores and problem-solving skills when children master story structure, as seen in Haven’s and Tales Toolkit’s studies.

- Storytelling Games: Haven suggests two games for classrooms: “Big Three Plus” (students create character, goal, and conflicts, then expand with motives) and the “Why Game” (asking “why” to build backstory and motives), fostering creative and critical thinking.

- Importance of Storytelling: Storytelling is central to human learning, not a supplementary activity, as it develops cognitive control over story elements, essential for functioning and resilience, especially in modern contexts where play and storytelling are reduced.

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