Thought I could tell you that …
… last year I founded a Go club in Bispingen, a village 60 km south of Hamburg, Germany. We are 3 to 6 regulars who meet every Friday evening. I usually give them 5 stones on 13x13, (sadly) we seldom play 19x19. I am the most enthusiastic player in this group and must adapt to their pace … letting bits of Go knowledge diffuse over to them under cover, so to speak, since they don’t really want to learn but rather “just” have fun, but sometimes they let me show them a few things I’ve learnt from books, this forum, Sensei’s Library or in regular or teaching games on Go servers, and
then they’re happy to have learnt something new
… then, having been long-term unemployed (until tomorrow, heh
), I wanted to spend my time in a way that’s fun and challenging for me and fun and edutaining for others, so in April I offered the local school to found and instruct a weekly Go workshop (voluntary work, no payment involved), which they happily accepted. I was allowed to spend a school hour (!) with, IIRC, each (!) of 12 classes from 5. to 10. grade (ages 10 to 17) and on the first Go workshop meeting there were 14 kids … of which over the rest of the school year a few left, and 8 stayed and camre regularly. This school year I lost one member due to him going to another school and gained a new one before I even could go through the classes again, which is nice. The school’s headmaster also allowed me to include 3. and 4. classes (ages 8–10), giving me the opportunity to indoctrinate even younger kids with Go
Very fine news is that I could motivate two members of “my” Go workshop to participate in a beginners’ tournament in Hamburg on November 11, 2012, which makes me very happy and excited. I myself will play in the regular tournament there, my first IRL tournament (and I’m already frightened sh!t about that
).
I should also add that the school Go workshop has been sponsored very generously by
DGoB (German Go Association) and
Hebsacker Verlag (German Go store) with a Go chest (9x9 and 13x13 boards & stones), lots of books to lend to the workshop participants, a magnetic 9x9 board, and other stuff like flyers, etc.
I’ve also created a small page on my Web site and a flyer for new members of the Go workshop (and for their parents!), amazingly the schools website incorporated this Web page into their site instead of just linking there, and even more amazingly the village municipality included a page on their Web site with an articlce about the new Go workshop at the local school. (I left away the links b/c it’s all in German. Fellow German readers here will probably have read about this already in the DGoB forum.)
So, that’s what I wanted to let you know
There are so many learning and teaching resources and ideas in this board alone, not to speak of the whole L19 forum that it’s hard to decide where to begin reading and even harder to stop reading … thanks all!
I know this board is about
how we teach Go, I know, but I thought it might be a nice beginning to tell
what and
where we teach. I may or may not write some more in this thread about how
I do it, I must see … tomorrow I’ll sign a new employment contract and after that I’ll probably have a LOT less time (and a little more money <happy>), so I don’t want to promise anything. At least I’ll be able to continue the Go workshop since my future employer supports my voluntary efforts.
Ta-ta for now
Tom
(For my own playing history see
my introductory post.)
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