Punahou School teacher Brian Johnson incorporates his love for the board game Go while weaving its concepts into teaching Buddhist philosophy.
This unique class helped earn the English teacher the title of American Go Foundation Teacher of the Year last week.
He's the first Hawai'i resident to receive the award since its creation in 1996.
"It was a surprise," Johnson said. "I just love the opportunity to teach people about this game and to look at how the basic strategies can often parallel some of the major concepts in Buddhist philosophy."
Go is a board game on a grid line that relies solely on strategy, much like chess. It's a complicated turn-based game with more than 300 possible plays on an empty board — compared to chess, whose pieces can have limited moves.
It's one of the world's oldest board games and is thought to have originated in China some 4,000 years ago.
"It's a game that requires a lot of humility," Johnson said. "It's a difficult game to become a stronger player. What's also nice about it is that it requires a lot of focus."
Johnson said he was an undergraduate studying philosophy at the College of William & Mary in Virginia when his avid Go player professor taught him the game. He became obsessed and realized the board game has many parallels with Buddhist philosophy.
Johnson has taught the class on Buddhist philosophy and the game of Go for 16 years.
He said the class uses Buddhism as a critical lens in English class, and it's a way to evaluate literature, characters and decision-making.
The class examines how Buddhism translates to effective gameplay strategies and how it works as a physical method for understanding Buddhism.
"We also look at the idea of the karma of the stones," he said. "When you think about Go, the stones only have value in their relationships to other pieces that get played on the board, and in the same way, our actions are largely tied to our subsequent actions, like whether or not something is good or bad. It kind of depends on how we continue to proceed in our lives and how we live our lives."
Students map out a Go game of their lives by highlighting major decision events and people. They can see it play out on the board as a physical metaphor for their relationships with family, academics, athletics and friends.
Johnson said he hopes to have more opportunities to teach the game of Go.
