Mr Finegold just created a character to entertein the students.
Is Ben Finegold as big a jerk as he seems in his videos?
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tamatama wrote:
Standing in front of an audience is being a teacher. Or, at tertiary level, a lecturer or a professor. It's the job. He is paid to do that, it's his job.
Being rude to learners is not an accepted pedagogical approach. Try that in any educational institution and he'd be fired, pronto. (Well, not sure he'd ever get hired actually). Has he been fired from St Louis yet?
There is a place for humour in education, most certainly. There is room for differing approaches. But there is no place for seeking to insult learners. Education is about learning and the learners, it is not about the teacher. This grotesque thinks its about him, and how funny he is through being rude. Ugh.
He just comes across as an unpleasant person.
(I am an educator btw - once a school teacher, now a uni prof.)
I had one school teacher who used humor and sarcasm in a manner very similar to Finegold. And I had another who, in addition to being sarcastic, was also blunt in his approach. If you got something wrong he went over it with you so that you understood it. If you got it wrong again then you clearly weren't paying attention and that, to him, was inexcusable. He'd call you out on it in front of the class.
A few of the precious little snowflakes were offended by ether teacher's approach, but for those of us who could suck it up and didn't think the world revolved around us, those two were hands down the best teachers at the school. Contrary to being fired one was actually coaxed out of retirement by the school board.
Honestly both of my kids love him. I prefer yasser and akobian. The elder kid moved to akobian lectures recently but finegold is very engaging and for me it is good.
ghillan wrote:
I watched some of his videos and i dont like his style.
IMHO a good teacher should always have respect for the audience, no matter who the audience is. Maybe i just dont understand his humour, but generally talking i think there is a difference between being funny and being rude . If you want to see how to be funny and polite, look at the Seirrawan videos, expecially those for kids ( Seirrawan: "Yes, young lady" ): example.
While Ben ... hum .. err ... is not ( imho).
If there are people happy with his style, i have nothing against that. Different people like different things it sounds to be just fair enough.
I dislike Seirrawan's lessons and find finegold' funny. In the video you posted Seirrawan spent 7minutes telling a story before he even looked at the chess board
Aug 2, 2016
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#108
In between all the smartass BS, Ben says incidental things that give me important insight into the game, insight I don't find other places. He is my favorite analyst right now and has been for a while..
In my time at the university the lectures where speaker really challenged the listeners and yes sometimes even ridiculed them were the ones that sticked in our memories. And often a bit (almost) hostile style of speaking is most thought provoking.
Atleast Finegold has something to offer, look up Mike Kummers videos from Saint Louis' youtube channel if you want some grinch-worthy material
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjV0UefKXw8
TheEinari wrote:
In my time at the university the lectures where speaker really challenged the listeners and yes sometimes even ridiculed them were the ones that sticked in our memories. And often a bit (almost) hostile style of speaking is most thought provoking.
Atleast Finegold has something to offer, look up Mike Kummers videos from Saint Louis' youtube channel if you want some grinch-worthy material
Agreed. Earlier in this thread I compared Finegold to an old science teacher of mine who's style was full of jokes, sarcasm and yes, often times a little mocking. He was also the best teacher I had, and I'll guarantee that everyone of us in his class learned more from any of the teachers who simply coddled and did nothing to challenge us.
I think Kummer's videos are actually kinda entertaining in a way. Sorta like watching the class dunce.
Aug 3, 2016
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#111
What an inappropriate thread. I thought personal attacks weren't allowed in the forums, mods. I love Ben Finegold's videos. Why do people trash people who contribute to chess education?
Sep 8, 2016
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#112
I love jokes and puns. Keep up the good work, Mr. Finegold. I love your "nemesis" videos. People are too uptight.
Sep 8, 2016
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#113
You would have to understand the humor of Jackie Vernon to understand Ben...Jewish HUMOR
Mike Kummer should be fired.
I'm 300 points below him, and I could do much better than that.
Sep 12, 2016
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#115
Having met the guy in real life once, i can honestly vouche that he is a much bigger jerk in person.
@varelse1 I've met him too and he seemed perfectly fine. I also know Julian, who mostly has good things to say about Ben. What did he do to make you dislike him?
Sep 28, 2016
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#118
Ben is just great! He provides basic principles without telling you explicitly that he is doing so. He has a great sense of humor and makes me laughing loud often. I'm sure he has no intention to offend any one. Yasser is very good as well, but with a different attitude- Both are great teacher- each in its one way!
i can see how ppl could be turned off to his lectures but i like some of them, most of the videos from the playlist about the 'greats' or GMs he admires and respects are great (Karpov, Topalov, Morphy, etc)
The one thing that drives me crazy is his Michigan midwestern accent, I'm originally from there and it reminds me of my entire family and makes me cringe
Akobian is great. He actually tries to make the people listening to his lecture better. There are a few other good teachers too.
As I see it, Finegold doesn't fit into this group. He tells some jokes, rapidly dashes through some games with little to no analysis, and that's it.
If he's essentially baby sitting a room full of 8 to 12 year olds, then maybe that's good. But otherwise...