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KGS Mentoring Scheme
    Keywords: Online Go

I started the KGS Mentoring Scheme mainly to help beginners learn and understand Go in a coherent fashion. Unfortunately I was unable to continue maintaining the scheme although there was considerable interest.

What I proposed was to have people in the scheme assigned a student AND a mentor: Someone they could teach and someone they could learn from. My philosophy on teaching is that almost everyone should be teaching someone else. To teach is to learn twice, or so I believe. By trying to explain what you understand to someone else, you are forced to justify your own beliefs in the process.

The way the scheme began was to have someone 6 stones stronger act as a mentor for someone else and help them gain 3 stones. My hope was that the student would get more coherent guidance, rather than learning through trial-and-error and isolated teaching games.

Since I cannot continue maintaining the scheme I am opening it up to the public forum (a great suggestion made by a couple of people). Whether or not people wish to stick to the ideas as I have layed them out above is unimportant - I hope the scheme will continue to evolve and be useful.

-- JadeGarden


If you want to know how to add yourself to this page, see my homepage. iLoveSai.
(So many newbies have been asking me, so I actually wrote it up. ) =-]


Shaydwyrm: Another thing I'd like to add is that the first thing you should do after adding yourself to this list is find a prospective mentor and student on the list that could match up with you. A lot of people seem to just be sitting on the list, hoping that someone will offer to mentor them or ask to be their student (or maybe they just haven't updated the list...). Take the initiative and ask someone to mentor you if you're looking for a teacher, and teachers, feel free to be nice and offer to mentor someone ^_^. Unless there's nobody around 6 stones away from you, I would say you should not stay on the unmatched list for more than a week.


Mentors and students

  • usagi (2d) ---> Fwiffo (9k)
  • Nugatory (-) ---> Slade (4k) ---> iLoveSai (18k) ---> allanx2000 (25k)
  • Tamsin (1k) ---> AhoChan (8k)
  • FuZZ (4k) ---> Dakre (8k)
  • Kaiser (5k) ---> Carioca (15k)
  • JadeGarden (7k) ---> p7a77 (14k)
  • holynec (7k) ---> Osmosis (13k)
  • AhoChan (8k) ---> evergreen (18k)
  • Dakre (8k) ---> Uttegae (20k)
  • iranai (11k) ---> mach1 (15k)
  • chrisberth (13k)---> bathrmsink (15k)
  • derek88 (13k) ---> schwako (16k)
  • arkuat (14k) ---> isceald (19k)
  • carioca (14k) ---> exar (15k)
  • Exar (15k) ---> Peantoo (21k)
  • p7a77 (14k) ---> Keith910 (22k)
  • Shaydwyrm (12k)---> ahmad (18k)

Mentors in-waiting

  • Velirun (2d)
  • vorpal (1d)
  • Mef (4k)
  • Cloud122 (6k)
  • Makar (8k)
  • Dakre (8k)
  • Malweth (9k)
  • Fwiffo (9k)
  • Picasiso (10k)
  • Ertai (11k)
  • Shaydwyrm (12k)
  • Frederik (14k)
  • DarkX (14k)
  • Osmosis (13k)
  • mach1 (15k)
  • bathrmsink (15k)
  • Jamba (15k)
  • AdamTwork (16k)
  • schwako (16k)
  • exar (16k)
  • reptar (16k?)
  • AsakuraHao? (17k)
  • evergreen (18k)
  • HikaruSai (20k)
  • Peantoo (21k)
  • keith910 (22k)
  • shenglong (22k)
  • Uttegae (24k)
  • PheXeRiaN (30k)

Students in-waiting

  • usagi (2d)
  • Velirun (2d)
  • vorpal (1d)
  • FuZZ (4k)
  • Mef (4k)
  • Javaness? (6k) student must have picture
  • Cloud122 (6k)
  • Makar (8k)
  • Malweth (8-10k?)
  • Ertai (11k)
  • Shaydwyrm (12k)
  • Frederik (14k)
  • Jamba (16k)
  • AdamTwork (16k)
  • reptar (16k?)
  • AsakuraHao? (17k)
  • shenglong (22k)
  • Liberson (27k)
  • droste (28k)
  • PheXeRiaN (30k)
  • Hypatia (30k)

See also: KGS Arch-Nemesis Scheme, KGS Teaching Ladder.


Discussion

There are still many things to do :/

  • spotting inactive people
  • keeping an eye on the ranks (everybody should update their ranks themselves)
  • keeping an eye on the three to six stone difference between mentor and student to be efficient
  • student/mentor assignment

any ideas are welcome... and feel free to take two students if you like :)

- Dakre

(This was formerly on Jade's own [ext] webpage...)


KGS Teaching Ladder vs. KGS Mentoring Scheme

This is EXACTLY what the KGS Teaching Ladder is set up for. You should check it out. - DrStraw

As I understand both systems (maybe I'm wrong), they are different. Although both of them aim to have higher ranked players teach lower ranked players, the KGS Teaching Ladder proposes a much more casual (I don't know if the word is right in this context) procedure. If you want to teach, you get in the room, if you want to be taught, you also get in the room, and you take whatever teacher/student there is available. That's great for people who a) just want one lesson, or b) don't want to devote much time to teaching. This system is for people who want to take one student, and teach mainly him, so the teacher can know the specific weaknesses of his student, and work on them, and a lot of other benefits that having a dedicated teacher brings. Again, maybe I misunderstood one (or both) of the systems, so I wrote all this paragraph just for nothing. Feel free to correct me. - Nacho

I am aware of the teaching ladder and I think it is a great idea. I came across it after starting this scheme. But I agree with Nacho - I think that the teaching ladder and mentoring scheme will appeal to people for slightly different reasons because they do have a different emphasis. - JadeGarden

One of the main differences is that you keep your student and your mentor. If you open up a teaching game in the ladder room, you teach someone, you don't know. But after some time you know your student and it's much more fun to help people you know. For same reason it's nice to stick to one mentor, who is happy when you make progress, too... :) - Dakre

Admittedly this is not the primary goal of the KGS Teaching Ladder but it is one of the ideas which has been used1 (see the link Teaching Ladder Ideas, which is connected to the main ladder page). In my opinion it may be possible to combine these two ideas - the ladder and the mentoring program - into a single entity and have something which is more successful than either can be alone. - DrStraw

I absolutely agree and encourage people here to play in the 'KGS Teaching Ladder' room. - JadeGarden

I have setup a discussion page about merging the two ideas. I would like to know what everything thinks about it KGSMentorSchemeAndTeachingLadder - Slade


Tamsin: I'd like to give this a try. I'm currently 1k on KGS.


Velirun: This is a great idea - but the problem is that it is difficult to get support for the upper end. That is, what does the 3-dan get out of mentoring a student? What is his motivation?

Actually, I have been idly considering forming something of this nature for a while, but with a little bit of a twist. If everyone were to contribute some token amount, say $2 a month, the top couple of players in the chain could receive professional or near-professional mentoring. In this fashion, everyone has something to gain.

In the version running around in my head, everyone would have two students around 5-6 stones below themselves. Ideally, the chain would be large enough to provide a good portion of the "top" of the chain to receive professional or near-professional tutelage.

RussellKhan: Well, I can't speak for 3dans, but I know that I teach (nearly) as much for my own benefit as for the benefit of those receiving the instruction.

Also, I would rather take part in program like this one or KGS Teaching Ladder, even if I were not to have a mentor of my own, than the one you propose. The main thing here is that I think even the token fee would tend to discourage those who are very new to Go and trying to learn. I would much rather be part of things that are dedicated to helping new players.

Dakre: The problem with the fee is that the system must work then. People without a mentor would be bad then. And mentors taking many students just for the money, too. This contradicts to the personal relationship a student may build up with his mentor. But you're right, Velirun, the upper end has a slight disadvantage :/

Velirun: The fee would go into a pool for lessons for the top players - not into a "mentor's" pocket.

Dakre: I meant the mentors of the top players ;) they are not real mentors then... but this seems to be ok when we get the system to work. Anyway we need to come over the problems of spotting inactive people and so on 'cause nobody likes to pay without having an active mentor i guess :/

And to not discourage newbies, the fee could only be for those who are below a certain strength like 15 or 10kyu... like you already see, we have enough capacities to find a mentor for a 20kyu. But the system has to work well before we can introduce a fee.

Tamsin: I don't like the idea of fees at all. If I were to pay for go lessons then I would simply pay a top amateur or professional to teach me, as many of them charge what are in my opinion very low prices, anyway.

Sometimes I think it's best to do things out of goodwill. Mentoring somebody for a short time each week won't do me any harm, and it will put back into the cycle the kindness other players have shown me.

JadeGarden: The difficulty of finding a mentor for higher graded players is always going to be present. However, I believe that some players are happy to contribute their time without expecting equal reciprocity. Understandably this will not appeal to everyone but I hope that it will foster a pleasant environment for learning and having fun.

Malweth: It's definitely a pyramid or at least a ladder - the top players don't get mentored and there are fewer of them. The bottom has a lot of players willing to have a mentor but who lack the skills to mentor others. This means that there's an ever increasing demand for volunteers who don't get anything out of it. It isn't a bad idea overall, but the upper level support is needed - I've added myself to both lists, though finding a good time (weekly) may be tough.



This is a copy of the living page "KGS Mentoring Scheme" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.