Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Chess Club for Kids
We're starting clubs here at my school. All teachers must either sponsor a club or monitor a study hall. Since I have no particular desire to babysit a bunch of lazy, anti-social non-joiners, I elected to sponsor a club.
The nice thing was that we got make our own clubs.
So I've been able to do something I've wanted to do since I got into teaching: I'm sponsoring a chess club.
I have good memories of chess club when I was in high school. Of all the clubs I ever belonged to, chess club was the least structured, and therefore the most fun. We'd simply gather once a month and play chess for an hour or so -- back in those days, I gave as good as I got, but I was nowhere near as good a player then as I am now (more on this in a moment). No pressure, no muss, no fuss... I don't think we even had officers.
Last year, the remedial math teacher -- an Army intelligence officer with a degree in physics and a truly frightening analytical skillset, including cryptography, image analysis, and a penchant for languages -- held a chess tournament in his classes. His rationale: chess teaches mathematical skill. I dunno... I played quite a bit of chess in high school, but you'd never know it from my pre-calculus grades. But the kids responded enthusiastically (if not particularly skillfully) and thus the seed was planted in my mind for a club.
Once the club idea was approved, I got to work polishing my horribly rusted chess skills. I went out and bought a copy of Chessmaster 10 Edition, which had received high marks from PC Gamer as an instructional program. I played through the game's main instructional tool, "Josh Waitzkin's Chess Academy," in which the subject of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer teaches the basics of the game: openings, tactics, strategies, endgames. And then I started playing against the program's dozens of "personalities," simulated opponents of all ages and skill levels, rated from 1 to 2475. I lost a few. Then I started winning. I can now consistently defeat players in the 800-1,000 rating range (on the game, anyway).
All this because there is no way I wanted to show up for chess club only to be challenged and trounced by some half-literate sixth-grader.
Our first meeting will be September 23rd, barring anymore hurricanes. Should be fun.
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The nice thing was that we got make our own clubs.
So I've been able to do something I've wanted to do since I got into teaching: I'm sponsoring a chess club.
I have good memories of chess club when I was in high school. Of all the clubs I ever belonged to, chess club was the least structured, and therefore the most fun. We'd simply gather once a month and play chess for an hour or so -- back in those days, I gave as good as I got, but I was nowhere near as good a player then as I am now (more on this in a moment). No pressure, no muss, no fuss... I don't think we even had officers.
Last year, the remedial math teacher -- an Army intelligence officer with a degree in physics and a truly frightening analytical skillset, including cryptography, image analysis, and a penchant for languages -- held a chess tournament in his classes. His rationale: chess teaches mathematical skill. I dunno... I played quite a bit of chess in high school, but you'd never know it from my pre-calculus grades. But the kids responded enthusiastically (if not particularly skillfully) and thus the seed was planted in my mind for a club.
Once the club idea was approved, I got to work polishing my horribly rusted chess skills. I went out and bought a copy of Chessmaster 10 Edition, which had received high marks from PC Gamer as an instructional program. I played through the game's main instructional tool, "Josh Waitzkin's Chess Academy," in which the subject of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer teaches the basics of the game: openings, tactics, strategies, endgames. And then I started playing against the program's dozens of "personalities," simulated opponents of all ages and skill levels, rated from 1 to 2475. I lost a few. Then I started winning. I can now consistently defeat players in the 800-1,000 rating range (on the game, anyway).
All this because there is no way I wanted to show up for chess club only to be challenged and trounced by some half-literate sixth-grader.
Our first meeting will be September 23rd, barring anymore hurricanes. Should be fun.
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