ideas on teaching

[EdLee]

Pulled from another thread What is "the direction of play?"

Bantari,

In other words: we have no clue why we do what we do, we just follow what the pros do or say - like a mantra, and who cares about understanding?
And out teaching method is: do what I say, it is correct, and if you want to try something else - its your problem?
And good student is one who does not ask questions we cannot answer, he just follows?

Those are Straw man arguments. In another recent thread,
you also jumped to the wrong conclusion and incorrectly claimed
that I thought only the best is qualified to teach Go.
You misrepresented, over-simplified, and over-generalized what I said.
"In other words," you put words into my mouth. Twice already. You know what they say about three times.

I grant you that children have more intuitive approach to things than adults, but you are not talking to children here,
and is certainly not a child which asked this question.

Seems non sequitur. We all know we are not
talking to children here (or do we? for all I know maybe there are children reading this forum).
Since when are children not allowed to be brought up in Go discussions,
especially when there are routinely new pros around 11 to 14?

Based on our previous forum and PM discussions, I assume (but I could be wrong)
that like most people here, we are passionate about Go and want to do nice things for Go.
Thus, sometimes heated discussions happen. That's OK.

However, I also have a feeling while you and I probably share some common experience (at least in Go),
we also had some other vastly different experiences (in Go and elsewhere).
As you said, we are all looking at the world "through the prism of many years of experience".
This we agree.

Sometimes, for effective communication and mutual understanding, certain shared experiences are crucial, or at least very helpful.
Which brings us to the next part, about certain experiences, whether they are shared, or not ?...

Someone is debating between (a) or (b) for and asks your opinion, between (a) and (b) -- what is your reply?

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Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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Is your reply...
- (a);
- (b);
- "I have no idea";
- "I would play (a), but I have no idea why";
- "I would play (b), but I have no idea why";
- "I would play (a), and I can give you some quasi-logic explanation, but you're not going to be satisfied";
- "I would play (b), and I can give you some quasi-logic explanation, but you're not going to be satisfied";
- None of the above (something else -- please explain.) ?

My reply:

Depends on the person. For some (beginners or otherwise), maybe I would say either one is OK. For some, I would say (a) -- and we're back to the same earlier discussion as in this thread -- What is the "direction of play?"

I know from past forum and PM discussions that you are not a fan of "this is a better move," by example method,
(with little or no explanation.) If I could find the exact quote I would, so correct me if I've misrepresented you here.

My shared experience question is: have you, in Go or elsewhere in life,
ever had a good teacher who successfully taught you with this method ?
Corollary: have you met other people (students), children or adults, who have successfully learned from this method ?
I don't mean just exclusively with this method. I include all kinds: from exclusively, to often,
to sometimes, to occasionally using this method.

My experience:

Yes, I have met multiple teachers who successfully teach with this method.
I have met many people (both children and adults) who have successfully learned from this method.
Including me, in more than one field.

This does not mean its OK for the teacher not to know the explanation.

Ironic: I find this position very dogmatic.

Dogmatic approach and lack of understanding is never a good thing, in my book.

Talk about irony: I also find this position to be dogmatic and show a lack of understanding.
More on this later.

[daal]

Pulled from another thread What is "the direction of play?"

Thank you!

In other words: we have no clue why we do what we do, we just follow what the pros do or say - like a mantra, and who cares about understanding?
And out teaching method is: do what I say, it is correct, and if you want to try something else - its your problem?
And good student is one who does not ask questions we cannot answer, he just follows?

Those are Straw man arguments. In another recent thread,
you also jumped to the wrong conclusion and incorrectly claimed
that I thought only the best is qualified to teach Go.
You misrepresented, over-simplified, and over-generalized what I said.

It might be better to assume a misunderstanding than a misrepresentation. An oversimplification is not necessarily tool for a straw man argument - it can also be seen as an expression of what one understood. Note that Bantari does use question marks.

You described the following two scenarios:

P=Player. X=beginner X. Y=beginner Y.

P. This direction is better.
X. Why?
P. This triangle looks bigger.
X. Why is bigger better?
P. It's intuitively obvious to me. Not to you?
X. No.
P. I can only say with my experience and maybe the experience of pros, this direction is better.
X. But pros can be wrong.
P. Definitely. In fact, Go history is littered with major changes in pro thinking every so often.
X. So you cannot prove to me, from first principles, 100% that this direction is better.
P. I cannot. I can only offer my intuition and experience.
X. But I don't have the intuition or the experience yet.
P. That's correct.
X. That's not enough for me. I must have "solid practical reasons to validate it," or else I won't just take it based on your experience.
P. That's quite OK. You are free to experiment and play any way you want.
X. OK.

P. This direction is better.
Y. OK.
P. On to the next thing...

Often, it is one reason (among others) why little children (Y) can make high dan in a few years,
whereas why some adults (X) get stuck at kyu levels for many years.

Of course, YMMV.

To me it looks like you are contrasting an obstinate adult interesting primarily in arguing with a reasonable child interested primarily in improving. While you don't imply that the child is not interested in understanding, you do imply that for someone interested in improving, it is better to listen than to argue.

On second thought, it does seem quite a stretch to interpret this as Bantari apparently did.

Sometimes, for effective communication and mutual understanding, certain shared experiences are crucial, or at least very helpful.
Which brings us to the next part, about certain experiences, whether they are shared, or not ?...[/hide][hide]Someone is debating between (a) or (b) for and asks your opinion, between (a) and (b) -- what is your reply?

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Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
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Is your reply...
- (a);
- (b);
- "I have no idea";
- "I would play (a), but I have no idea why";
- "I would play (b), but I have no idea why";
- "I would play (a), and I can give you some quasi-logic explanation, but you're not going to be satisfied";
- "I would play (b), and I can give you some quasi-logic explanation, but you're not going to be satisfied";
- None of the above (something else -- please explain.) ?

Why assume that the student wouldn't be satisfied with one's explanation?

My shared experience question is: have you, in Go or elsewhere in life,
ever had a good teacher who successfully taught you with this method ?

Exactly what method do you mean?

[EdLee]

To me it looks like you are contrasting an obstinate adult interesting primarily in arguing...

No. X equally and genuinely wants to improve as much as Y.
X is not interested in arguing for arguments' sake (though it may appear that way).
One (big) difference is X thinks (believes) some kind of explanation (verbal, written, visual, audio, or otherwise "intellectual")
is a must for him/her to better "understand" a reply such as "this direction is better."

My experience has shown that this is not always true.
Having an explanation, in particular an intellectual one, is neither always possible, nor always better.
My experience has shown this is true in Go and in other human endeavors.
This is one of my main points.

[EdLee]

Why assume that the student wouldn't be satisfied with one's explanation?

I dunno -- ask Bantari ?

[EdLee]

Exactly what method do you mean?

Teaching by example. By doing. By showing good examples, and by following good examples.
Corollary: by pointing out and correcting mistakes (again, not necessarily through intellectual explanation.)
Not always through 100% intellectual explanations.
In some cases, even with zero intellectual explanation.

Guess where this has worked and continues to work today: in many non-human lifeforms.
Guess where this has worked even for homo sapiens and earlier ancestors:
for tens of millions of years before language technology was developed.

Note: I'm not saying intellectual explanation is bad (although, in some cases,
yes, it actually can be bad and confusing, worse than without) --
please don't put words in my mouth again.

[topazg]

I suspect it may be a cultural thing. Certainly Yilun Yang found a big enough difference between Chinese and American students to feel the need to put a preface together for Fundamental Principles of Go that addressed exactly this point.

However, if I understand something consciously, I can apply that understanding at any point I think it applies to a given context. If I am to do it by intuition, I need to have already established some form of reasoning in my subconscious - if my subconscious understanding is correct, then great! Otherwise, I will misapply what it was my teacher wished to impart.

In essense, in case 2, we are to presume the teacher already has a good intuitive knowledge of shape, direction, fundamentals etc, and therefore as long as Y is a willing student, he'll start playing better moves. If we can add intelligence, spacial awareness, a good memory and good pattern recognition to the student's qualities, he may even develop a strong subconscious understanding of why he's playing these moves. However, what if the teacher recommends this:

$$Wc Captures: B=0 W=0
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Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Captures: B=0 W=0
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$$ | . . X . . . . . . . .[/go]

Teacher: This is the correct approach in this corner position.
Student: Why?
Teacher: Because in my intuition tells me so, and in my experience it is.
Student: Ok

Here we have a rather awkward predicament, no?

Effectively, you are advocating a teaching style which really does make the stronger player the better teacher on principle (which helps me understand the strength of your feeling on the importance of professional tuition). I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, and with bright capable students I'm pretty confident it would be a much faster way of imparting knowledge, and the subconscious understanding of those students would quickly keep up with the knowledge as their brains made sense of what is better to play and what isn't.

However, I also feel for those that don't intuitively "get" the game in this way, all they have is intellectual reasoning to guide their moves as their intuition simply struggles with it. If a teacher tells them "this is better because it is", will they recognise a similar situation and context next time? Maybe, maybe not. If they don't, the teacher can repeat this particular piece of knowledge as much as they like and the student will not be improving.

Having taught quite a few things, including having past and (one) present Go student, I think every single person I have taught would have found case 2 type tuition very unsatistfying, and would have stopped quite quickly. That's not because of my lack of playing strength compared to a professional player, it's because some part of them feels that the intellectual reasoning aspect of learning Go is important to them. Of course they want to improve, but the "why?" question is very important for most adult students I have encountered (maybe because intuitively learning something new is harder as an adult, that progress requires intellectual reasoning after a certain point).

(Caveat: I have not taught children at Go or any subject I "teach", however, I do have children. I would have said that to begin with case 2 tuition works up until the ages of 9-11 somewhere, when if you can't support case 2 with case 1 tuition they start just assuming old fogey parents don't know as much as they think they do).

I'm not saying that your suggested method is incorrect, although some of your justifications about what species do for learning is a straw man for so many reasons (that I won't go into as they deserve a couple of full posts by themselves). However, I do think a) context is important (in some situations, such as a pro-led children's youth academy in CJK, I absolutely advocate case 2 teaching), and b) listening to what the student wants is important (saying it is the student at fault when he is unhappy with "this move is better" and feels the need for explanation is, IMO, just poor teaching skills).

[EdLee]

topazg, welcome back and thanks for your input. There are points that I agree with
and there are some I disagree with. I really have to crash now,
so a longer reply will have to wait. But...

Effectively, you are advocating a teaching style which...

No. You misunderstood, or maybe I didn't make it clear, or both.
I try again. If I had said, "I (highly) recommend such and such a method" then I would've been
advocating it. But I did not say that. At all.

What I said was in my experience, and in many people I've met, in certain fields,
I have seen success in this method. This in no way means I advocate it.
I am merely sharing my experience, and I want to see if Bantari also has had
this experience, or not. Because a shared experience is important.
If he has, that's one thing. If he has not, that's another direction.
Then the discussion would go one way or another.

[EdLee]

Having taught quite a few things, including having past and (one) present Go student, I think every single person I have taught would have found case 2 type tuition very unsatistfying, and would have stopped quite quickly. That's not because of my lack of playing strength compared to a professional player, it's because some part of them feels that the intellectual reasoning aspect of learning Go is important to them. Of course they want to improve, but the "why?" question is very important for most adult students...

Yes, this is a very interesting point.

So the first "shared experience" questions (probe) I ask you is: in the current shimari extension in question,
someone like Bantari is not satisfied with the "bigger triangle is better"
intuitive answer, even as we've seen, you even use some numbers to help with the explanation --
so what do you do in this case?

(Thanks for answering my original questions; but I changed it.)

[topazg]

topazg, welcome back and thanks for your input. There are points that I agree with and there are some I disagree with. I really have to crash now,
so a longer reply will have to wait. But...

Effectively, you are advocating a teaching style which...

No. You misunderstood, or maybe I didn't make it clear, or both.
I try again. If I had said, "I (highly) recommend such and such a method" then I would've been
advocating it. But I did not say that. At all.

I wonder if we have a different definition of "advocate"?

(from dictionary.com): to speak or write in favor of; recommend publicly:

It seemed like you were recommending case 2 tuition as valuable, I wasn't stating that you considered it the be all and end all of teaching

What I said was in my experience, and in many people I've met, in certain fields, I have seen success in this method. This in no way means I advocate it. I am merely sharing my experience, and I want to see if Bantari also has had this experience, or not. Because a shared experience is important. If he has, that's one thing. If he has not, that's another direction. Then the discussion would go one way or another.

Ah, ok, so can I try to get to grips with the point you are making by rephrasing it a bit? It's quite possible it's just me being slow:

1) You are recognising from experience that teaching types case 1 and 2 both exist, and have demonstrated value.
2) You have provided context and explanation for what case 2 tuition is, on the offchance it will spark recognition from others (particularly bantari)
3) The goal is to demonstrate there is more than one effective teaching style, without any form of merit comparison between them.

Is that close?

So the first "shared experience" questions (probe) I ask you is:
- do you believe you can give a "100% complete" (whatever that means) intellectual explanation to every move you make ?
- do you believe all pros can do the same thing for every single move they make ?

1) No.
2) No.

[John Fairbairn]

Of course they want to improve

I'm not sure this is quite true. I think the observed difference between adults and children is important at a completely different level. in general, adult learners have already seen enough of the world and have worried enough their bank balances to realise they are not going to become a pro or even a very strong player. They may want to improve, but not to that degree. They accept the limitations imposed on them and so seek instead to become fans of the game. This means learning to appreciate it, and for this a rational (not necessarily logical) explanation of what to look for is what they crave. They will still want a measure of improvement just to confirm and expand their ability to appreciate the game, but the target is not to be super-strong.

It may be a lot easier to see this if we look at sports such as baseball or cricket, where most adults wouldn't even dare stand in front of a fast ball or bouncer yet love the vicarious thrill of reading about others do it, or at something like music - taking up the piano late in life will probably drive the neighbours up the wall but may help you enjoy listening to symphonies and concertos more.

What seems to follow from all this is that, if you are in fact one of the exceptional adults who really do just want to become super-strong and you don't want to talk about Genjo being stronger than Chitoku or vice versa, forget the intellectual understanding side of things, become a drudge, and let your unconscious brain make sense of it all.

[EdLee]

I wonder if we have a different definition of "advocate"?
(from dictionary.com): to speak or write in favor of; recommend publicly:
It seemed like you were recommending case 2 tuition as valuable, I wasn't stating that you considered it the be all and end all of teaching

I was using the first thing google replied "publicly recommend or support."
I missed the part about "to speak or write in favor of;"
So to me, "I have seen success in X" does not mean the same thing as "I recommend you try X."
To me, only "I recommend you try X" means that.
Maybe I still misunderstand the word "advocate"... anyway,
I said "I have seen success in this method"; I did not mean "I recommend people try this method."
I would've said the latter if that was my intention. I hope this is more clear now.

1) You are recognising from experience that teaching types case 1 and 2 both exist, and have demonstrated value.

Yes.

2) You have provided context and explanation for what case 2 tuition is,

I did it by examples. I gave some context, and some examples.

on the offchance it will spark recognition from others (particularly bantari)

It was not "particularly", but "all" for Bantari. Maybe the Hide tags were not clear.
The original post, in Daal's thread, was all for Bantari. It got too long,
so I divided it into sections and put each section under a Hide tag --
but the entire thing was for Bantari.

Others, of course, are welcome to chime in. As you are doing now.

3) The goal is to demonstrate there is more than one effective teaching style, without any form of merit comparison between them. Is that close?

No, it was still (2) -- to see if Bantari has had any success with the teaching-by-example method.

[EdLee]

although some of your justifications about what species do for learning is a straw man for so many reasons
(that I won't go into as they deserve a couple of full posts by themselves)

They are not "justifications," not a straw man, or maybe you misunderstood, or all of the above.
Daal was asking for more clarification on what I meant by "this method".
I was giving more context by providing more examples. They are not justifications.
They are facts, and examples. And I'm still happy to discuss this in other "full posts
by themselves," too.

[EdLee]

Having taught quite a few things, including having past and (one) present Go student, I think every single person I have taught would have found case 2 type tuition very unsatistfying, and would have stopped quite quickly. That's not because of my lack of playing strength compared to a professional player, it's because some part of them feels that the intellectual reasoning aspect of learning Go is important to them. Of course they want to improve, but the "why?" question is very important for most adult students...

I really must crash after this. But this is a very interesting part of the discussion.
And thanks, John, for his input.
Back to the shimari extension question. Bantari already stated even he
intuitively agrees one direction is better. But he does not seem to be
satisfied with the explanation "the triangle is bigger".
He asked, yea, so what? Why does the bigger triangle make it better?
And you replied with some numbers about the areas.
To which he replied, yea, so what ? He claims "quasi-logical case can always be made for both."
Specifically, "another argument can be made that in the flatter shape,
the stones are closer together, and thus give each other more support and make it harder to attack."
I know this is a special case because Bantari is not a raw beginner adult student,
but his "why?" is very good and very on point.
- do you think you can give an explanation right here that would satisfy Bantari ?
- if yes, would you like to share the explanation (process) here ?

[Bantari]

Ok, let me first deal with the unpleasant stuff. I'll try to address the rest of what you say separately.

In other words: we have no clue why we do what we do, we just follow what the pros do or say - like a mantra, and who cares about understanding?
And out teaching method is: do what I say, it is correct, and if you want to try something else - its your problem?
And good student is one who does not ask questions we cannot answer, he just follows?

Those are Straw man arguments.

I am sorry if I did, but the example you gave really looks to me like the 'teacher' stresses the position that 'it is not important for you to understand, just do it - pros do it, so it is probably right.' The simplified example you then gave went like 'This is better, OK, lets move on'.

I assumed you presented the simplified shorter conversation example as being better than wasting a lot of words on asking questions the 'Teacher' is not prepared/able to answer anyways, so why bother asking questions.

This is how I read your example. If this is incorrect, please explain what you meant. But don't get offended that I understood it like that. And I certainly did not try to put words in your mouth.

In another recent thread,
you also jumped to the wrong conclusion and incorrectly claimed
that I thought only the best is qualified to teach Go.

Well.... you certainly made a good case to me that a pro (in general) is a better teacher than an amateur (in general) - and this takes into account only their playing strength, no other teaching-related skills. So I am sorry if I drew this conclusion, but I hope you can see how easily I could have made this mistake.

You misrepresented, over-simplified, and over-generalized what I said. "In other words," you put words into my mouth. Twice already. You know what they say about three times.

Ok... so what is it you are saying? Since I cannot repeat what I understand you say in my own words, and the understanding I have of what you say is unclear or contrary to my beliefs, how are we to have a conversation?

I have to be able to say: this is how I understood what you say, now tell me where I am wrong. It might be that I over-simplify or misunderstand, this is what a discussion is there to clear up, no? Otherwise, you demote me to the position of just having to listen to, but not question, what you say. I cannot do that. And I don't care if you think this is the proper way to teach, or to talk to kids... you are neither my teacher nor am I a kid, so lets drop that and lets have an adult conversation, please.

So - if you have a problem with the way I understand what you say, explain it better, don't get offended.

I grant you that children have more intuitive approach to things than adults, but you are not talking to children here,
and is certainly not a child which asked this question.

Seems non sequitur. We all know we are not
talking to children here (or do we? for all I know maybe there are children reading this forum).

There might be, but it was *me* who asked these questions, and it was *me* you were answering. If your answer to "Why is your triangle obvious?" is something along the lines of "Children learn things like this or that" - it is side-stepping my question and posting something else entirely. My question was not "Why do you teach children like that?" but "Why do *you* think it is obvious?" And I ask because it is not all that obvious to me, other than purely instinctually, and I was curious if you actually have some good reasons to support what you say.

And I assure you - I am *not* a child. And in the context of this particular question - the issue of how to teach kids is waaaay of topic.

Since when are children not allowed to be brought up in Go discussions,
especially when there are routinely new pros around 11 to 14?

This too is off topic here, so I will not comment on that.
Can we stick to the subject, please?

[Bantari]

This does not mean its OK for the teacher not to know the explanation.

Ironic: I find this position very dogmatic.

How come?
What is dogmatic in saying: if you claim something is good, you should have at least *some* reasons for that claim!

I mean, what is the alternative? Claim things to be good or bad without any reason at all?
Is that what you propose? This is less 'dogmatic' to you?

As a matter of fact - none of that has anything to do with dogma, just with common sense (or the lack thereof.)