Exciting thread that reminds me of exciting times. Back in the 90s I participated in an initiative to teach Go in schools. One of the kids we initiated to the game went all the way to become the French champion 10 years later.
Kids are very competitive, and providing incentives was key to keeping a core group. Having other schools to compete against was also a big factor. In our case, we found a sponsor and were able to organize a tournament, with a trip to Japan as first prize. You might find a local sponsor (company or game store) willing to provide some support. Good luck!
Once again thank you so much for your kind replies.
Funny enough, tonight my son watched me play a move in a correspondence game and eventually asked to play (I had stopped trying to offer teaching him after a few failed attempts). I opened a demo board for him on OGS and showed him how to capture stones. He played against himself, made a lot of prisoners and asked for more tomorrow! Looks like I’m going to have my first pupil
I found this account in the AGA E-Journal, from 2006.
The Boulder (CO) Kids and Teens Go Club has a new program called “500 Stones,” reports David Weiss. “It’s like the Shodan Challenge, except that instead of being an individual challenge, it is a challenge for the entire club to improve by 500 stones,” explains Weiss. “We estimate that it will take 18 - 24 months to achieve this goal, but we intend to celebrate every 100 stones of progress with cake or ice cream or chocolate of some kind.” The club has already picked up a collective 30 stones since starting last month, says Weiss. “We get a lot of new kids who start around 35 kyu, so there is lots of room for improvement. We now have a continuous range of kids from 4 - 33 kyu, so it is a lot easier for the 20 kyus to improve now than a year ago when the strongest kids were 20 kyu, and the adults were all 6 kyu or stronger.”
In reference to Lys’ comment
I don’t suggest proposing Go to children but just to play in front of them.
I was reminded of a Kabuki Kool video in which professional kabuki actor Kataoka Ainosuke recounted his experience as a young apprentice (I think 9–12 years old or a similar range) in the early '80s.
He said that apprentices of the beginner level were not expected to be actively taught, but instead to sit quietly in the dressing room and observe what their master and the other actors did, and learn from that.
By the way, I know @gennan has experience teaching children in the Netherlands.
I’m not really “teaching” children much. I’m more a facilitator who enables children to play go with each other. What I’ve been doing is very similar to what @teapoweredrobot describes about his primary school club (and with very similar results):
A friend of mine places captured stones on the side of the board and doesn’t call them “killed”. He tells his daughter: “They sit here and cheer on their team.”
Damn, even the main Kabuki Kool channel went down.
I thought it was official content. That’s a real shame; there were some great videos on there. A few can still be found elsewhere, but still… such is the transitory nature of online media. It’s a reminder for us to archive our favourite videos locally.
Anyway, I found this interesting account of Go being used as a tool for – not sure what the word is, perhaps “stabilising” – a child (some might say young adult) with “emotional and behavioural difficulties”.
