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3 <!-- Mirrored from users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/SHUNTGO.html by HTTrack Website Copier/3.x [XR&CO'2014], Sun, 06 Nov 2022 06:49:33 GMT -->
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8 <a name="The South Huntington UFSD After-School"></a><a name="The South Huntington Go Program">
9 <p><strong><hr>
10 </strong>
11 <br wp="br1"><br wp="br2">
12 <p><strong>The South Huntington Go Program</strong>
13
14 <p><strong>&copy; 2005, 2009 Milton N. Bradley </a></strong>
15
16 <p>Based upon my conviction expressed above that learning Go is a superior way to train the
17 developing mind, with the assent of then School Superintendent Dan Domenech I began the
18 SHUNT UFSD After-School Go Program in 1991 with a small group of third and fourth graders
19 meeting in each of the Maplewood and Birchwood Intermediate schools, and all interested
20 Middle and Senior High school students meeting at the Stimson Middle School. The illustrations
21 show students playing 13 x 13 line Go at Birchwood, Maplewood and Stimson in the 1997-8
22 school year.
23
24 <p><img src="kids98b.gif" align="left" > <img src="kids98m.gif" align="middle" >
25
26 <br wp="br1"><br wp="br2">
27 <p><img src="kids98s.gif" align="left" >With each succeeding year the SHUNT
28 after-school Go program grew based almost
29 entirely on word-of-mouth, with 125 children
30 entered in 1996-7 and 146 in the 1997-8 school
31 year, although normal attrition inevitably reduced
32 these numbers to about 33- 40% of these figures by
33 the school year's end. This growth was greatly
34 aided by the arrival of School Superintendent
35 Gerald Lauber, who authorized the program's
36 expansion to include third graders in the
37 Intermediate Schools, and it continued under the
38 leadership of Superintendent Marilyn Zaretsky.
39
40 <p>In the 1997-8 school year, for the first time I experimented by using the simplified approach of
41 "The Capture Game" for all new beginners. The advantages of this method are that the beginner
42 has little to learn initially and can therefore begin playing and having FUN immediately. Its
43 primary disadvantage is that it inevitably reinforces the beginner's counterproductive tendency
44 carried over from such simpler games as chess and checkers to focus upon the capture of
45 opposing stones instead of on such key Go fundamentals as "shape", eyemaking and prevention,
46 territory, "influence" creation and nullification, etc. Even after the conclusion of that school year
47 "the jury was still out" on whether this method is more productive than the "conventional"
48 approach. The overall attrition rate was about the same as in prior years, but the competence and
49 enthusiasm of the kids did seem just a bit greater. However, at least part of this is attributable to a
50 change in my teaching style, so it's unfortunately unclear whether using "The Capture Game"
51 actually generated any real benefits.
52
53 <p>The result was that upon mature reflection and after much "soul searching"I decided to return to
54 the time tested "conventional" teaching method in the next school year, modifying it slightly to
55 allow the kids to begin playing almost immediately by omitting introduction of such
56 complications as making two eyes and Ko until they arose in actual play. As hoped, IMHO this
57 produced a superior result!
58
59 <p>Invariant in either approach is that all beginners start playing on 9x9 line boards because this
60 restriction in the size of the playing field not only reduces the complexity of the resulting
61 positions but also radically shortens the game as well. This not only accommodates the children's
62 still largely undeveloped attention span and therefore prevents boredom by producing a quick
63 result for every game, but also enables them to quickly obtain much needed practice in dealing
64 with such fundamentals as recognizing the game's end, counting territories, etc.
65
66 <p>When in my judgment the students mastered the game's fundamental mechanics of play (but
67 certainly NOT yet either its incisive and devilishly clever tactics nor its almost unbelievably
68 profound strategy) they were "promoted" to play on 13x13 - a significant milestone in their
69 development to which they aspired and reacted to with great pleasure. At this point, the most
70 marked and universally visible difference in their behavior was the vast improvement in their
71 attention span!! From the typical 15-30 minute attention span displayed by almost all beginners
72 at the start of the school year, almost without exception at the time of their promotion to 13x13
73 the children remaining in the program were not only capable of maintaining focus on playing Go
74 for the full hour-and-a-quarter that our sessions lasted, but were enthusiastic about doing so!
75 Since this improvement was displayed equally by the third, fourth, and fifth grade students it is
76 clearly the serendipitous result of the Go program and not just the fact that the students were 6
77 months older.
78
79 <p>If this was the sole benefit generated by participation in the Go program it would far more than
80 justify the time and effort invested, but it really represents only its first fruit. As noted in the next
81 section of this web page entitled TEACHING THE NEW "R" OF REASONING, the
82 transformation of the student's reasoning processes from their initial primitive state to one of
83 adult high-level sophistication is a far more valuable result.
84
85 <p>In the first 6 years of the Go program I began each session with a brief lecture, but my
86 experience during that time clearly demonstrated that the children are most strongly motivated by
87 peer competition. This lead to the establishment of rating ladders at each school and emphasis on
88 that mode of behavior, and my decision in the program's seventh year to end the formal lectures
89 at the time that all children were promoted to 13x13. Although that increased their enthusiasm,
90 the unfortunate consequence of this emphasis on peer competition was necessarily that
91 opportunities for the children to receive formal Go instruction or to play against the instructor
92 and to thereby gain the benefit of his knowledge and experience were far more limited than is
93 optimal. On occasion, at my suggestion some of the children chose to play against me instead of
94 conducting a ladder match, but for the most part their desire to move up the ladder was so
95 overwhelming that they seized every available opportunity for peer play. So when there were an
96 even number of children in a given day's attendees, my only available way to provide the
97 instruction that they required to improve their still largely undeveloped skills was to flit from
98 game to game, mentally noting key positions and then reconstructing them from memory after
99 the game's end and then demonstrating to the participants what should have been done.
100
101 <p>But when there were an odd number of children at a given session an opportunity for individual
102 instruction was presented because no child was ever left without a game! In that case, I
103 announced that because of the odd number someone would get to play with me until an opponent
104 became available, and then requested a volunteer. These games were conducted either at
105 handicap or "even", at the child's option, because I explained that they were not playing against
106 me to win but to learn! And as soon as any ongoing game finished, our game was aborted (unless
107 the child wanted to finish it, as sometimes happened) and that child was replaced by one of those
108 who just finished his/her match. In this way, in a given session I might get to play at least part of
109 a game with as many as 10-15 kids!
110
111 <p>The signposts of a child's progress when playing against me on 13x13 at a 5 stone handicap were
112 as follows:
113
114 <p>Stage 1. All of the Black stones die.
115
116 <p>Stage 2. Black makes a live group somewhere.
117
118 <p>Stage 3. Black makes more than one live group, but still has a high negative score (I have
119 captured many more prisoners than Black has territory).
120
121 <p>Stage 4. Black has a low negative score.
122
123 <p>Stage 5. Black has a positive score, but is very far behind.
124
125 <p>Stage 6. The game is fairly close.
126
127 <p>Stage 7. Black wins!
128
129 <br wp="br1"><br wp="br2">
130 <p>That summer I created an "Advanced Go Seminar", open to all interested Go Program
131 participants, which met every Friday evening. Free of the pressure of school and homework, it
132 was hoped that the opportunity thus provided would enable those interested to devote more time
133 and effort to their Go than was possible during the school year, leading (hopefully) to a quantum
134 leap in their skill level. Unfortunately, although 24 children signed up for the seminar other
135 family commitments resulted in an average attendance of not more than 8 or so, and a number of
136 those students who had professed the greatest interest had the poorest attendance records! But
137 those who did attend made significant progress, with the result that the very best of them actually
138 improved to the point that she consistently achieved a positive (although still far from winning)
139 score in a no-handicap 13 x 13 game against me!
140
141 <p>Teaching these children was a rare privilege for me! Most of them were bright, funny, effusive,
142 witty, clever and charming, and for the most part superior students, although my greatest success
143 was probably in motivating a few "difficult" kids who weren't otherwise successful either
144 socially or in their regular classes.
145
146 <p>All of the children were very competitive and obviously enjoy playing Go very much, but despite
147 this and the impressive numbers noted above I do not yet consider this program to have been
148 more than a marginal success at best, because no participant has progressed to a point at which
149 the program's design objective of significantly improving his/her REASONING skills was been
150 achieved, although there were many indications of progress in this direction. Perhaps my
151 personal standards are unrealistically high in this regard as several have claimed, but I'd much
152 prefer to err on that side rather than give myself accolades when there was much still to be
153 accomplished.
154
155 <br wp="br1"><br wp="br2">
156 <p><strong>Epilogue </strong>
157
158 <br wp="br1"><br wp="br2">
159
160 <p>For a number of reasons it became reluctantly necessary for me to end the after school Go program at the end of its 8<sup>th</sup> year. Undoubtedly the most important of those reasons was the lack of positive support
161 from the School District, and especially from Supt. Zaretsky herself. Although never explicitly stated, it was apparent that her attitude toward my program could best be described in terms made infamous
162 in the fight for civil rights - “benign neglect”. And this was exemplified and made abundantly apparent to me when the school hired a photographer to document the various groups participating in all of
163 the District’s after school programs for inclusion in the District’s Newspaper “Spotlight”. But my Go program wasn’t included, even though the number of its participants was several times greater than
164 that of most of the others, even including the vastly popular sports programs. When I protested this, the bland rationale provided for the omission was that my program, despite its manifestly great success
165 and popularity, wasn’t an “official” District program! Well! To say that this displeased me greatly after 8 years of selfless dedication to the District’s children would be a monumental understatement!
166 But that alone, devastatingly discouraging as it was, wouldn’t have been sufficient for me to abort the program. The decisive factor was the onset of phlebitis in my legs, which made it infeasible for me to stand or
167 walk around for any extended period, and that was the final straw that impelled my decision to end the program. As unfortunate consequences of this premature program end, I was never able to unequivocally demonstrate
168 the superiority of the “conventional” teaching method over that of “The Capture Game”, nor was I ever able to bring any of the program's participants to the desired high skill level. As a consequence, until just
169 recently I had no solid "proof" that the program had in any substantive way achieved any of its goals, or produced any
170 real benefits for its participants. But that uncertainty recently ended on what for me was a very high note!
171
172 <p>At a recent regular Wednesday night meeting of the Long Island Go Club in our local Barnes &amp;
173 Noble bookstore, I was approached by a huge, smiling young giant who I instantly recognized as
174 the now grown up version of one of my program's "regulars". And when he told me that he had
175 fond memories of my "great program" and that he thought that it had helped him in his studies, I
176 was uplifted. A few weeks later this was even more strongly reinforced when I visited my local pharmacy to
177 pick up my prescription, and the woman behind the counter revealed that she was the mother of
178 another of my former "regulars" who had just been admitted to Manhattan College and - this is
179 the key point - who told his mother that he felt that the reasoning skills he had gained from my
180 after school Go program had been the reason for his academic success!!!
181
182 <p>All of that was topped by what happened at the LIGC's meeting on Wednesday, Dec 7, 2005 when I
183 was approached by a woman who noticed the Go board I had just set up. As we began to converse about Go she
184 suddenly recognized me, and, adressing me by name then began to effusively pay me the finest compliment I've
185 ever received, saying that I "had changed her daughter's life". And then she related that some 8 or 9 years
186 earlier her daughter Tia had been in my after school Go program and that I "had inspired her to study Math and Science,
187 instead of (paraphraisng slightly because I don't recall her exact words) the softer disciplines like Social Studies
188 that most girls take". And then she went on to relate that Tia had been admitted to Harvard, played the violin, spoke 4 languages (English,
189 Spanish, her parents' native Farsi, and Japanese, which she had then been studying for 3 years.) And the coup de grace was
190 that Tia intended to become an M.D.! And then Tia herself appeared, all grown up, of course, and was equally effusive! Well!
191 To say that I was both astonished and overjoyed would be a masterpiece of understatement! Although I love Go and am
192 fully convinced of the value of learning it on its own considerable merits, my intent and hope in conducting my
193 afterschool program had been to achieve precisely the result that Tia had obtained - to inspire the kids to value
194 the power of reasoning, and to have that in turn transform their lives for the better. But until this point I had
195 believed that, at least for the most part, I had failed. But now, I know at last that I had in fact atleast modestly
196 succeeded, and that was vastly gratifying. To be sure, I had evidence demonstrating that I had achieved the desired
197 result in only the few cases I've described here, but considering that mine was a voluntary after school program that
198 met for only 1 1/2 hours/week, I believe that even that modest success is remarkable. So maybe, just maybe, I'm really
199 the competent, inspirational teacher that I've always believed myself to be.
200
201 <p>The foregoing is, of course, only anecdotal "evidence" and therefore not definitive, but since it is in
202 complete accord with everything that I believe and strove to achieve, I contend that I may be justified in feeling both
203 elated and vindicated thereby.
204
205 <p>Milton N. Bradley 12/08/05, updated 12/02/09
206
207 <a href="TeachingNewR.html">
208 <br wp="br1"><br wp="br2"></font>
209 <p><font color="#0033ff"><strong>Continue</strong></font><font color="#0000ff"></a></font>
210 <font color="#0000ff">
211
212 <p><strong>Click Here To Return To</strong><a href="index.html"><font size=+1><font Color="#0033FF"><strong> Milt's Go Page</strong></font></a>
213
214 <p><hr>
215
216 </body>
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