Teaching Curriculum
I'm trying to organize a curriculm to teach club members about go. I'm really interested in go culture, so I'd like to include topics in this subject.
These are the proposed topics, which I'll eventually flesh out. Any suggestions for additions, removals, or reorganizations would be appreciated.
Audience: SWIC Go Club (College Students)
Pre-existing knowledge: Little, to none
Goal: Introduce audience to aspects of the go world
Timeframe: Weekly, 1-2 hour sessions over 1 year
- Principles of Go
- Culture
- Go history (Prior to 20th century)
- Ancient Chinese Rules and Philosophy
- Legends of go origins
- Four Houses
- Giants of Go
- Meiji Restoration
- Developments of Go during and after 20th century
- Shin Fuseki
- Komi
- Title Matches(Game analysis)
- International Tournaments (Game analysis)
- National Organizations
- 20th Century Giants
- Go history (Prior to 20th century)
Bob McGuigan: It would be nice to include some history of go in other countries besides Japan. After all, you are going to explain the different rule traditions. In fact, I wouldn't get too deep into the different rule sets and komi values since this is a course for beginners, right?
Will: As far as depth, I won't be covering these topics immediately. Maybe during a revisitation of the subject material. For beginners, basic (Japanese) rules, 9x9 strategy, and some stuff on the (well known) Shusaku.
Later on down the road, after the club has increased in size and strength, I'd like to get into more advanced concepts like sente/gote and discussions about the various rulesets.
I'd love to add history involving other countries, unfortunately, my knowledge of countries other than Japan is pretty limited. Where should I start?
Bob McGuigan: John Fairbairn has written a lot about weiqi in China ands some about the history of go in Korea.
Will: I've added Go Seigen, international tournaments, Ancient Chinese Rules and Philosophy, title matches of C,J,K,.
What I feel this lacks:
- Ancient players of renown from areas other than Japan
- Female titles
- Ideas of where to begin and how to start teaching joseki and fuseki
As always, any other comments are always appreciated.
tderz: It seems important to know what the purpose of this curriculum should be.
- If the students should get interested in (playing) Go
- - it does not appear suitable, let them directly play Go instead.
- If they should learn about above topics,
- better have them buy the excellent Almanac?, and let them read it themselves (faster, more efficient).
The biggest aspect of the Go world - as defined in the Goal above, is having fun/motivation/flow in playing yourself. I do not see this appear at all in the list, which might end up in frontal teaching (not the best way for stimulating learning/learner's motivation).
To start with the subsets of rules looks boring.