An Ideal Learning Project For Any Classroom:
The Ancient Game Of Go

by Roy Laird, Ph.D.

Abstract: The ancient Asian game of Go offers students a high interest activity with a low learning curve that can be linked to standards based curricula in ways that enhance learning, including for students who need or benefit from visual, hands-on, practical educational tools. In addition, certain unique aspects of this particular game produce outcomes that promote positive character development.

About the Author: Dr. Laird holds a Ph.D. in clinical treatment of children and adolescents from the NYU School of Social Work. He has worked with children in clinical settings and schools for more than thirty years. Dr. Laird is also an avid lifelong Go enthusiast who plays at about the 3K level.

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Play Is Serious Work

Play is a fundamental activity from birth throughout the life cycle. Infants begin playfully exploring their bodies and the world around them soon after birth. Parallel play and games like "peek-a-boo" emerge as the child discovers the existence of others; next, through fantasy play, children explore social roles, master drives and impulses by playing them out. School-aged children have usually progressed through these stages, and begin to discover competitive play as a fun way interact with others while working out aggressive impulses and other drives in a socially acceptable way. Activities with competitive elements can offer many rewards throughout the life cycle, to players and fans alike. Every sports enthusiast derives great vicarious satisfaction from the competitive play of others.

The competitive arena offers many aspects that can stimulate growth and development in new ways. The unique benefits of physical competition are universally recognized -- strength, endurance, coordination, and physical release, to name a few. While mental competition lacks the physical element that makes these gains possible, it It shares important elements of challenge:

-- Attention-concentration: Players must maintain focus throughout the game to succeed.

-- Locus of control: As players develop skill, they llearn that they have some control over what happens, rather than simply counting on luck or fate to decide the outcome.

-- Sportsmanship: Players learn to be modest in victory, gracious in defeat and honest in their dealing with opponents.

In addition, mental competitors must apply a wide range of mental skills:

-- Sequential and deductive reasoning: Players must anticipate future developments, and utilize heuristics, formulas, decision trees and/or other methods to select their moves.

-- Strategic and tactical thinking: Players must manage immediate concerns while bearing long-term goals in mind.

-- Flexibility: Players must remain alert to the possibility a better plan is possible, or a different plan is necessary.

-- Planning: Players must develop a victory plan and coordinate their actions to fulfill that plan.

-- Memory: Players recall similar positions and previous games and readings and apply this knowledge and experience to the move selection process. However, studies by Alfred Binet and others have shown that strong chess players' memories are no better than average; where they excel is in the instant recognition of better moves than their weaker counterparts.

Players are motivated learners; they receive immediate real-world feedback on their efforts, and they see improved results as a natural consequence of sustained effort. For some students who struggle with physical sports, classroom skills, or social interaction, mental competition can become an area to excel.

The Perfect Medium For Competitive Learning

Games and other activities can be used in any classroom, but they are particularly valuable in the upper grades of primary school as a respite from the more rigorous segments of the classroom day. Among games, which of them is best suited as a platform for development? Chess stands alone as a widely recognized productive activity for a wide range of students. Ferguson's Chess In Education Research Summary (1995) and a 2003 review of the literature by America's Foundation for Chess cites numerous studies such as those of Stuart Marguiles. Title I funded programs like Chess In The Schools introduce thousands of students to chess every year. Indeed, the positive impact chess instruction can have on cognitive, personal and social development seems self-evident. The NYC Dept. of Education trains hundreds of classroom teachers to teach chess as part of their standards-based curriculum every year through the Chess-In-The-Schools Teacher Training Institute.

Studies have also shown that studying Go is beneficial. In Japan, students who play Go are twice as likely to go on to college. A recent Korean study found improvement in several areas among five-year-olds who studied Go.

As a classic two-person game of skill, Go shares all of the above attributes with chess, and offers several additional elements:

Simplicity: The game of Go is supremely simple, uncluttered by artificial or arbitrary rules. Everything, even special cases like ko and seki, evolves naturally and elegantly from the central principle of surround and capture.

Complexity: The game of Go is unimaginably complex. The board is five times as large as a chessboard, (19x19 vs. 8x8). Since there are no special rules regarding movement of pieces nearly all play are possible at any time. After decades of efforts, the strongest computer programs are easily defeated by talented children. Learn more from New York Times staff writers George Johnson and Katie Hafner, who explain why this is so.

Depth: The game of Go offers a lifelong challenge. Some have compared it to learning a language, or a musical instrument. Players who stop playing actively often enter another active phase, sometimes finding returning to the game to find that they have kept all their strength or even become stronger.

Respectful customs: As in the martial arts, Go players conduct themselves according to established customs of respect and sportsmanship.

Constructing, Not Attacking: Game historian William Pinckard has noted that chess, with lines of soldiers attacking each other, embodies the "man vs. man" aspect of Western warfare. Go players build structures, tolerating the opponent's success, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. Unlike nearly all strategy games, Go is about building, not capturing or destroying. Go players can also attack and even "kill" each other, but only as a tactic to achieve the overall strategic goal of surrounding territory. Merely harassing the opponent will not gain victory against an experienced player. Most games only involve the capture of a few stones, and some are completed with no capture whatsoever. This distinction evokes a completely different way of thinking.

Seeking Balance, Not Triumph: Chess is a game of all or nothing: Go is a game of balance, embodying the Asian concept of yin/yang. For instance, consider a row of stones that surrounds territory. The closer together, the more solid and immune to attack; the farther apart, the more area they can capture or influence. The wise player always seeks balance between aggression and defense, territory and influence; a famous Go proverb says, "Rich men shouldn't fight."

Different Skill Levels Can Have Equal Matches: Go, like golf, offers a natural handicapping system that makes it possible for nearly any two players to have an evenly matched contest. The ultimate goal is to improve one's level of play; over time, properly ranked players will lose roughly half of their games. If chess represents "man vs. man", Go represents "man vs. self." In fact the game itself embodies the Asian focus on group identity, in contrast to the Western individualism seen in chess. The rules of chess endow pieces with their unique properties; Go stones are all identical, and only gain power as part of a group. "Whereas chess pieces mark the moves of abstract powers through space, Go pieces record the pure movement of Time. A black is put down, then a white one -- one is meaningless without the other." (Shotwell 2002)

Links To Core Curriculum

Click here to learn more about how to use Go as a medium to teach core curriculum content.

Classroom use of games brings important factors into play:

Project-based Learning: When students learn together, organize a league, and pursue other game-related interests, they learn organizational skills, teamwork, follow through and many other important skills .

Differentiated instruction: Students who have become interested in Go are primed to absorb related material in core subject areas. Click here to view lessons plans linking Go to math, English, social studies and science. Go As Communication describes how Go can even be used with special populations such as senior citizens and those with developmental delays. (If you are a teacher, get your copy free from the AGF!)

Modeling: Teachers who are new to the game can show students the methods and principles they use to grasp the basics and improve their skills, and have a dialog about the process of learning.

Collaborative Learning: A warning for teachers: unless you are already an experienced player, you are unlikely to remain the strongest competitor in your class for long. The learning capacity of the developing mind makes it possible for children to improve very quickly. Think about the gains in self-esteem that can occur when child students surpass their adult teachers.