the frig blig

I have fathered no children but am currently the go instructor of 5 elementary-school kids — 4 4th-graders and 1 5th-grader. I know the subject about as well as any 8k go player, but have learned that knowing a subject does not mean I can effectively impart this knowledge to others. For instance: last Monday I gave my kids 2 tsume-go problems. It’s common knowledge among go players that studying life and death problems helps your reading ability and makes you stronger; I have seen this happen in myself. So giving my kids problems is a great idea eh? But I gave them problems #21 and #22 from Maeda Nobuaki’s book. For instance, here’s problem #21:
These took me 10 minutes to solve…and my kids couldn’t get them at all. Mistake! I should give them much easier problems. Just one example of how much I have to learn about teaching. Next class I plan to show them a joseki (they know none); maybe the taisha!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 8:09 am and is filed under go, general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.