Chess Taught In Schools

[Ken MacDonald]

Some time ago, Ted used to teach chess in schools or, at least, arrange to have it done. Does anyone still do this? Is the program still alive?

[Neil Frarey]

Ted?

I'm sure the oh so caring Chess Federation of Canada leadership already has that valuable program in place for some time now ... don't they?

Doesn't that f'n CFC leadership proudly tout ... promote the study and knowledge of Chess?

Critical basic stuff, right?

[Hans Jung]

Hi Ken, Are you referring to Ted Winick? If so, his organization Chess Institute of Canada is alive and well. Just google them for particulars.

[Vlad Drkulec]

There are lots of people who teach chess in schools including myself getting a group ready for the Windsor Chess Challenge after school. I previously taught a high school class during the day but this is an after school class which produces somewhat more motivated students.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Both Christina Tao the CFC youth coordinator and I attended a recent two day seminar on Chess in the Schools put on by the CCA popularly known as FIDE America. The seminar was in English and featured several very relevant speakers.

In Canada, education is a provincial and local issue. In most cases, similar to my involvement in teaching in the schools, either the instructor is approached by a teacher or a school or vice versa. I was approached because of my involvement in the Windsor Chess Challenge where I usually hand out flyers for my services as a chess coach/trainer. The Windsor Chess Challenge is the largest local tournament in Canada from the point of view of participants with between 1400 and 1600 participants from all the grade schools in the Windsor and surrounding area. This used to be the main way that I got more students but since the pandemic it has been through my website and word of mouth. For the most part I only teach online these days and so I am not a fit for many who approach me about lessons as they want in person lessons and I no longer do that.

Chess in the Schools is not something that the CFC can easily influence nor is it something which we can oversee without a huge increase in additional resources including paid staff. When I first became CFC president, someone came to me with a proposal for a big Chess in the Schools push but the way that the person was proposing we structure it was simply not possible without at least one more administrative employee. This was before Bob Gillanders took over the duties as Executive Director and things were a bit chaotic already.

The CFC board consists of unpaid volunteers who are kept pretty busy already. We all have families and personal lives which occasionally have to take some precedence over the time demands of the CFC and FIDE.

[Pargat Perrer]

....

The CFC board consists of unpaid volunteers who are kept pretty busy already. We all have families and personal lives which occasionally have to take some precedence over the time demands of the CFC and FIDE.

The bolded statement applies to competitive chess players also.

Being a purely deterministic and skill game, chess above all other games has the highest ratio of work to reward. There are those who love the game enough to put the work in notwithstanding the paltry reward (for most, obviously the top 10 or 20 GMs are getting a good reward). But no one should ever expect a change in this status quo.

I am an advocate for teaching poker in schools, of course without the money aspect. Reasons: chess only teaches that with good work comes good results, and yes this is good learning. But if you make that point too strongly, you cause students to miss the very important point that raises its head in real life: NOT ALL GOOD WORK LEADS TO GOOD RESULTS. The real world is too full of examples of this to list.

So I believe yes, chess should be taught in schools, and so should poker because poker teaches the student how to manage themselves with getting long strings of bad results even when doing the right things. This is absolutely necessary to avoid mental illness that can arise when you expect that all good work will without fail yield good results ... and you get invariably very disappointed. As a young child or teenager, this can be very psychologically devastating.

To me, poker is more about real world life than chess will ever be. But chess does teach visualization better than poker does, so I am in favor of both.

EDIT: forgot to mention that poker also teaches the principles of probability much more so than chess, and this too is part of everyday life.

[Fred Henderson]

Every school I ever attended had a chess club, for those who showed an interest in the game. This would be run by a teacher who had chess skills. Should be more than enough.

Chess has about enough chance of being a popular sport in Canada as does soccer.