Institutional Based Access to Go in the Municipality Huellhorst in Germany

Name:	Institutional Based Access to Go in the Municipality Huellhorst in Germany
Contributor:	Wolfgang Claßen
Organisation:
Edition:	2015

Project Description

The starting idea was to offer Go to some pupils of the comprehensive school in Huellhorst from one teacher and Go-player in 2013. This offer was not in demand at all. The reasons were diagnosed in that nobody knows something about Go except the answer of the question in several crossword-puzzles about an Asian game with two letters.

Aim of the Project

The reasons for the fascination of Go ist clear for everyone who already knows or plays Go, thus the problem of the pupils not choosing Go as a subject in school seems to be solvable in spreading Go by implementing the meaning of go in the heads of as many inhabitants as possible in the whole community from all agegroups. As Huellhorst is a little municipality, the institutional facilities are overseeable and all age groups can be reached easily by a single person commitment.

The centre of making Go well known and teaching Go is of course the comprehensive school in the municipality Huellhorst, the only higher education school in the community with about 1300 pupils from class five (10 years old) to class 13 (19 years old, A-level). In the consequences of the experiences of the first Go-class ERG 8 there was established a well equipped special Go-room. In this Go-room all the lessons of the comprehensive school courses as well as the course of the college of further education and the free go-playing time could take place.

So the idea concludes in trying to reach every age group in the municipality of Huellhorst through using all the existing institutional facilities.

The aim of the project is to spread Go systematically in all public educational facilities in the municipality of Huellhorst to people from the kindergarden to the retired adults - that means from the age of 3 - 99.

Means of the Project

The Go-Instruction started in August 2014 with a HEBSACKER "Schul-Go-Koffer" (15 9*9-Sets) sponsored by the "go4school" project of the German-Go-Association dgob and - because of the pupils of the ERG 8-class soon increased their Go-skills - additional with a HEBSACKER "Schul-AG-Koffer" (four 9*9 and three 9*9 combined with 13*13 boards ) financed by the parents-association of the comprehensive school and in addition with three 19*19 boards combined with 13*13 boards from the school-budget.

The Go-Project started with the help of the GELSENWASSER AG award gained in May 2015 which made the project well prepared for every Go-lesson offer for all-age classes that are presumably going to start in August/September 2015. Three more 19*19 boards with stones and gokes, three chessclocks and a lot of teaching books for beginners and advanced players were purchased.

A special Go-room in the comprehensive school is equipped with an interactive whiteboard of the recent generation. modern notebooks (30, bought in 2015) are achievable in the next floor beside the Go-room, Tv, Dvd-player, overhead projector and traditional blackboard can be taken for granted. A Go appropriate decoration will follow. This room ist reserved for all Go-activities of the comprehensive school and it is also to be used by the college of further education and for the future free Go-playing location. The kindergarden and primary schools have their own opportunities.

The primary schools are all now already equipped with the "Schul-Go-Koffer" too. All the participating institutions, the kindergarden, the elementary-schools and the comprehensive school are already/will be equipped with Filz-Go from Steffi Hebsacker (Image 3) and the all teachers will be provided with teaching material and supported by instructions from the project holder. All the necessary material is already ordered and payed for and its arrival is expected every day. To craft the Filz-Go with the provided material is a necessary task for the kindergardens and the primary schools. All the material was payed for with the funds of the GELSENWASSER award.

Timeline

August 2014: First Go-course ERG 8; Go as a subject established in the school schedule. Result: 14 eight graders participate.
February 2015: The pupils of the Go-course demanded additional playing time only for Go. Result: The headmaster permitted a course OMA during the lunch break. Result: 5 to 15 pupils from grade 5 to grade 9 every Wednesday.
March 2015: Participation in the GELSENWASSER AG Project "vonkindauf" competition to finance the education-material of current and future activities and with the objective to support Go in the communal primary schools and kindergardens in addition to our comprehensive school. Result: Award of 1600.- .
May 2015: Go-Information-Day (Workshop included) for the target audience teachers of all the pre-schools and primary-schools, interested teachers of our comprehensive school and representatives of all our classes 5th to 10th class. Result: 73 participants.
August 2015: Students can choose Go as an elective among other alternatives such as physics, sports etc. starting in August 2015. Result: The students elections are still in progress; for example indications for Go the class 9 about 64 indications (first informal update 2015-05-29, no indications last year).
August 2015: Starting Go in the pre-school (kindergarden), primary school, communal youth centre and at the comprehensive school in 4 courses.
September 2015: Starting Go in the college of further education.
Everything is to be continued as long as possible.

Geographic Extension

All the activities take place in the whole municipality of Huellhorst, a community with around 13000 inhabitants in an area around 50 square km in East Westphalia, a community in the beautiful rural northeast of North Rhine Westphalia/Germany.. 5 out of 5 elementary-schools (red) , 5 out of 6 kindergardens (pre-schools; blue), the comprehensive school (about 1300 pupils; Z white), the college of further education (c yellow), a free go-playing location (yellow) and a communal youth centre (y green) as you can see in the map of the Municipality of Huellhorst.

Results

Since the inaugural ERG 8 course started in August 2014 the fourteen boys from this cours were systematically instructed to play Go. They took part at an Go-school-match with the Go-AG from the high school Gymnasium Leopoldinum Detmold /Germany organised by 2k BENSEL and at the Ponnuki Paderborn 9 by 9 Competition on 30th May 2015 which was subsidized by the parents-association. From this course two teams will participate at the HPM-German-Championship on 19*19 boards in September 2015 in Berlin.

A special Go-room with opportunities of storing the whole teaching material as books, go boards and stones, interactive whiteboard for internet-based education was designated and reserved for all Go-activities.

The amount of pupils choosing Go as a subject increased for example within one year from 7,8% to 35,6% in year 9 and in year 10 from 0 % to 8,2% (in total almost 180 pupils per year; from 2014/15 to 2015/16). In class 9 we will have advanced pupils from the former course ERG 8, so the astonishing amount of elections is probably based on mouth-to-mouth advertising within the class 8.

Current results in the running project are also already several Go-playing children in the community of Huellhorst outside of school since the Go-information-day at 12th May 2015 (Image 1) and since the elementary-school-day 21th May 2015 (Image 3 and 4) which could be realised with the recently purchased material.

Public Exposure

Neue Westfalische Minden-Luebbecke vom 12.05.2015 (left)
Westfalenblatt Minden Luebbecke vom 13.05.2015 (right)

Websites:

Neue Westfalische Minden-Luebbecke vom 12.05.2015

Westfalenblatt Minden Luebbecke vom 13.05.2015

Human Resources

Teacher and project leader for all the lessons in the comprehensive school and for the support of the primary school and preschool teachers is currently only the project holder. The volunteer teachers in the elemantary schools had already been instructed at the Go-information-day in May 2015 and will be further supported by individual visits of the project holder. In their lessons they will be supported by pupils of the comprehensive school according to their place of residence as they already did on the elementary-school-project-day on 21th May 2015 (Image 4). The project holder (Image 2) is qualified by being a teacher and a Go-player who ist professionally taught by a german 6d Go player and by a seminar in March every year headed by an 8p professional.

Financial Resources

The financial resources consist of the schools own budget, the parents association fund and mainly by the GELSENWASSER award. The lessons of the project holder courses are within his duties with the agreement of the principal because they belong to his regular school-schedule.

Perspective

The headmaster is already looking for some new teachers with a Go - qualification and subjects mainly English or Mathematics for the upcoming school years to diversify the Go-lessons.

The kindergarden, primary schools, comprehensive school, the college of further education and a free go-playing location courses and events will be continued. In order to consolidate the interest of the pupils and the adults competitions are planned in our community hall in Huellhorst.

With all these methods of getting Go spread by an complete institutionally based access program Go should become well-known by people from all age-groups as an fascinating, interesting and sophisticated game witin the municipality of Huellhorst. The demand for Go lessons should increase. Maybe this concept finds some imitators in other communities in order to establish the game Go more and more in all the education institutions in the wider society.

Wishes

The headmaster of our comprehensive school ist looking for teachers with a Go qualification. The material sources could be extended with further 19*19 boards for the adult-appropriate level and to motivate the pupils by using fine material with adequate stones and gokes and with more teaching material. We are actively searching for experts who could give Go-presentations and lectures at our school and the community hall.