Dictator or helpful guide?

So as the quote unquote experienced player in my brand new club (to be read as 16k teaching 30k), I want free and open discussion in the online group about resources members found useful.

How do you suggest addressing content that, as the “teacher,” seems potentially more confusing than helpful, without stifling free and open discussion and looking like a dictator?

It depends whether your goal in addressing that content is to definitely disuade your members from using it, or just alert them caveat emptor.

If the former, then you are a dictator :slight_smile: Hopefully a benevolent one :slight_smile: In that case, they will either like it or leave :slight_smile:

If the latter, then presenting it as “Guys, it looks appealing, but my experience has been it’s more confusing when you’re starting up than helpful” then they have been warned and can make their own decision.

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Yeah I went for something along the lines of the second one as the content wasn’t necessarily wrong just didn’t feel like it complemented my chosen teaching path and was concerned it might cause confusion. Oh well, hopefully if it does they’re big enough to ask the question :slight_smile:

there are many teaching situations that can potentially cause confusion. in my experience the reason is often that the teacher is confused herself :thinking:. it is very important imo not to fall in the trap of wanting to answer every question and wanting to know everything for certain. dont present your take on stuff as facts just because you find yourelf in the teaching role all of a sudden. tell students what you think is correct (…what else would you tell them… :roll_eyes:) and if questions arise just saying you dont know either is always an option.

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Yep good thoughts, thanks

One thing you can do is ask them if they understand all the “basics” that the material uses. For example, Nick Sibicky, who I would not recommend to anyone less then 20k. Does the student understand the go terminology that he uses, does the student understand the basics that he uses(like when Nick Sibicky says “you can net these stones” and places a stone on the board, does the student understand how to net those stones). If so, then the material could definitely teach the student something, if not, then move on to something more basic. One series I would recommend to come before Nick Sibicky is Jonathon Hop’s(Sunday Go lessons) ten minute go, a great series about basic life and death, and also nets and ladders. (I think there are a few videos for the opening in there too, which I would steer clear from.) Anyways, I hope this helps, and I hope that your go club continues to grow :slight_smile:

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Thanks for your feedback :slight_smile: I will definitely check out Jonathon

One question.
What teaching methods are you using to teach your students?
I am trying to get my family interested in go, and so far they aren’t really liking it, lol. But I think that’s because I was teaching them poorly. :slight_smile:
Btw, I think that the lessons that are more difficult are from lesson #11 and onward.(Ten minute go) They are on a 19x19 board and are more of globally thinking lessons then locally thinking ones, which may make them hard to process for beginners. However, I dont think they could really mislead a beginner, maybe just be confusing to him/her. So show them to your class whenever you want them to see it, or don’t show them at all. I hope this helped, and good luck with your class.

So we’re still very young in so it’s just the basics firstly. After some research i preferred the territory method over the capture method.

Not saying capture method is wrong and certainly i point my students to iwtg, etc. But a member shared a YT video that tried teach go but i found the whole rather poorly made and thought through. He was not clear with his words or organised in his direction and that on top of the fact that he was teaching capture go made me uncomfortable.

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Whaddya think of these? From BadukChannelAmerica on YouTube (they have a few more introductory videos).

Andy & Sierra (Good Teacher Who Has No Mercy - Go, Baduk, Weiqi)

Andy & Sierra ep#2 - Who’s Your Teacher? (Ladder & Net)

Andy & Sierra ep#3 - Everything is Possible

Go (Baduk, Weiqi) Opening Tips For Beginners


BTW, here’s my Go playlist on YouTube to which I’ve added LOTS of Go videos, in no certain order, and which (sadly) is totally chaotic, meaning that I’ve added quite a few videos which are either not really educating or of bad quality. I should weed it out some time but that’s exactly what I lack ATM: time.

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Thanks! I’d seen them a while ago but forgot about them! Shared them all with my group! :wink:

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Forgive me for the Off-Topic (I’d love me some hide tags here) but I spewed my coffee all over my keyboard when I just watched the first of those videos again, this time with auto-subtitles:

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Could you say it’s a black rights movement to fight the commie threat? :wink:

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Oh don’t we all just love subtitles…

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