Why Chess Belongs in School

David MacEnulty

"Our goal is to prepare students to be thinking, caring and productive adults." The speaker was Sylvia Simon, principal at a huge elementary school in the southwest Bronx, where the children live in the two highest crime precincts in the Bronx, and the poorest congressional district in the country. Speaking in a classroom at eight o'clock in the morning, her audience was a small group of new teachers. We were two weeks into our careers in education.

Sylvia was one of God's gifts to these children, and in this area, God's gifts were few and far between. While many people in her position would have been just trying to survive another day, Sylvia was listening to problems her new teachers were having, validating our frustrations, clarifying our confusions and offering realistic suggestions. Throughout the day, she was a constant presence everywhere in the school. She stopped by random classrooms, occasionally joining in to teach the class because she just couldn't stand being away from the children. She did little things like passing out pencils for 100% attendance, and big things like introducing chess as an academic subject for her seventeen hundred students from Kindergarten to the fifth grade.

This last was where I came in.

I teach chess.

When I first started in the classroom in Sylvia's school, many of us thought chess might have some useful academic spin-offs that would help the children with their other subjects. Goethe famously said (famous amongst chess teachers anyway) that, "Chess is the touchstone of the human intellect."

What none of us knew at the time was that chess would also be a major contributor to the children's emotional development. Over the next eight years I had an opportunity to see just how important chess could be in helping the children both intellectually and emotionally.

Sylvia was a great inspiration to everyone on her staff. She knew that we were not just trying to teach the children the various subjects they were expected to master in each grade; we were teaching the whole child, and that included helping with behavior and with the attitudes that influence behavior. She also knew that in this environment, many of the children did not come to school properly prepared to learn. In other words, we would have to make up for a lot. Teaching the various subjects is important, but it's not going to happen unless we get the children ready to learn in the first place.

Usually the idea of preparing children for a successful adulthood is taken to mean that the children will gain certain technical knowledge in math, science, and various language arts, and if we really do things right, they will actually enjoy learning, and learn to think for themselves.

There is also a recognition that they will probably be better citizens if they have some knowledge of social studies, and they may get more out of life if they also take part in dance, theatre, music, art, and sports programs. Some may even be inspired to embark on careers in the arts or sports and, through their public performances, enrich the lives of those who choose more typical careers.

Each area of study has its own patterns, thought processes and logic. Although some schools pay attention to thinking skills as a separate category, mostly the teacher of each subject teaches the thinking skills appropriate to that area. So in biology one learns about classification systems, in math students study logical sequences, and in language arts the students learn the logic of verbal structures, to understand what they read, and we hope, to write clearly as well.

Thinking skill fall into many categories. Defining and classifying, comparing and contrasting, recognizing patterns, identifying structures, finding relationships, logical sequencing, creative interpolations, synthesizing, evaluating, anticipating problems, proposing solutions, analyzing outcomes, and assessing risks are all mixed together under the umbrella of thinking skills. Then there are the fuzzier forms, less precise but nevertheless useful and important, such as reasoning by analogy, personifying and story telling.

One of the things I love about teaching chess is that chess calls on all these thinking skills, from the most rigorous to the fuzziest. Chess calls for precise logic as well as creative leaps of imagination. It demands accurate calculation and clear structural analysis, along with the less precise reasoning by analogy, the careful assessment of future danger and the risky requirement that on occasion a decision be made with incomplete understanding.

All this came into focus as I watched Brian, sitting perfectly still, his dark brown eyes darting up and down and across the sixty-four squares of the chessboard. He saw the threat Lisa had posed from the other side of the board, and now he is analyzing the position, looking for solutions to the problem he faces. Although his body is immobile, the neural pathways in his brain are flying through patterns and calculations with blinding speed as he compares one line to another, searching for connections and relationships between the pieces that will be favorable to him. Lisa is threatening to win a Pawn on the Queenside of the board. Brian asks himself how to defend the Pawn, looking at various solutions. They all require that he either retreat one of his forward pieces, or relegate a powerful Rook to mere guard duty. Having ascertained that he can protect the Pawn, but not liking any of the immediate solutions, he now looks to see if he must. Perhaps there is something stronger he can do. The piece Lisa moved to attack the Pawn took it from a strong defensive post near her King. Did the piece leave a weakness in its wake?

In his mind, he tries out a series of moves in a logical sequence, discovers a flaw in his reasoning, and begins to map out another series of moves. After several such excursions, he notices that he can borrow an idea from one line and insert it into another, reaching what appears to be a winning position. His evaluation of the position is based on a structural analysis of how his pieces will control various squares on the board, with lines of attack and defense that might convert to a clear win rather quickly, or at least provide a long-term advantage if she somehow manages to find a way to escape his attack.

He writes his move down on his scoresheet, and then studies the position one last time. After recalculating the sequence and finding no flaw, he is convinced this line works. With complete confidence, he makes the move, presses the button on his chess clock, and looks up at Lisa.

She is clearly surprised. Brian registers her surprise, but nothing shows in his face beyond the slightest trace of a short-lived smile.

Lisa instantly regains her composure and begins a process. That process is to first pick up her pen and write the move down. Then she puts the pen to the side and leans into to the board. She buries her head in her hands for the intense concentration to come. Now it is her turn to feverishly dart over the board with her eyes. She figures out Brian's thought processes as if she had been inside his head. Brian has ignored her threat, but posed an even bigger threat of his own. If Lisa carries out her plan, Brian's army will come crashing through. His attack will be crushing. The Pawn Lisa can take will be irrelevant. The problem looks insurmountable. His pieces are too well coordinated, and her King too vulnerable. She begins to feel despair, but her face is immobile, and she will not give in to defeat easily. Retreating her attacker back to its defensive post is a loss of time, and Brian's attack looks too strong to withstand any lost time. She quickly looks for vulnerabilities around Brian's King, because only something as startling as an attack on his King could cause him to abandon his assault on hers.

Lisa in fact found a way to delay Brian's attack, but in the end, he was able to overcome her attempts to frustrate his plan and, after a tense struggle, he emerged victorious.

The big idea here is that in just those two moves that I focused on in this game, these two third graders were utilizing thinking skills of every sort: they classified information, examined logical sequences, interpolated ideas, analyzed structures, evaluated positions, examined dangers, proposed solutions, looked for problems within their proposed solutions, ran a risk analysis on the final decision before implementing it, and ultimately took responsibility for the results of their actions.

While most people focus on the thinking strategies the children were using - and they are very important - as that last observation about responsibility indicates, Brian and Lisa were also showing tremendous emotional intelligence throughout this process. Some of the usual indicators of emotional immaturity - poor impulse control, rapid mood swings, defeatist attitude, poor motivation - were entirely absent.

Their maturity at age eight was remarkable, but it did not come from the sky. It came through a solid, consistent dedication to the technical and life skills that we can teach through chess. They had learned chess in Kindergarten, and every school day from first grade on they studied and played with the school team for an hour before school started. They had also played in about twenty tournaments a year. By the third grade, these two children already had a vast reservoir of experience to draw upon.

The beauty of chess in a school setting is that every game offers countless teachable moments. Teachers always look for the "teachable moment." A teachable moment is often an event that takes place in the classroom, but it can be simply a comment or an observation by a student that gives the teacher an opportunity to broaden the child's understanding. Some will be based on traditional thinking skills involving positional or tactical ideas on the chessboard, but many will center on emotional intelligence issues. This was the second part of Sylvia's admonition to her new teachers. We can't ignore emotional intelligence and still call ourselves educators.

Emotional intelligence, according to a brilliant book of the same name by Daniel Goleman, has to do with impulse control, mood control, persistence, self-motivation, compassion and empathy, personal responsibility and optimism.

When two children sit down to play, and each moves so rapidly that no real thought can take place, in short order there will be an angry dispute over whose move it is, where a piece is, whether a piece can be taken, or any number of other problems that will thoroughly wreck the game. Such games must be stopped immediately, because they are simply reinforcing emotional immaturity. Such games may seem to be the quintessential teachable moments for impulse control. But in all probability, the children will be so hot that no teaching can take place until they cool down.

One thing we know about this rapid-fire game is that it will happen in almost every class. The kids will get too excited about the battle on the board and lose all control. Instant response will be the order of the day, and nothing is more inimical to good chess than not thinking before making a move. Therefore, we can be sure that lousy chess will be the result, and that will cause all sorts of ego-involved strife off the board.

A very good way to lessen the impact of such deleterious behavior is to role-play this event before it takes place. Then when it actually happens in the classroom, we can refer back to the role-playing. If we are lucky, the children will have one of those wonderful 'aha' moments, and that may be enough to bring them out of their stormy attitude, which then becomes an exercise in mood control.

Another very important part of emotional intelligence is optimism. Optimistic people have a positive view of the future, whereas a defeatist sees little good coming down the road. If not much good is going to happen, why bother trying? Needless to say, persistence, optimism, and self-motivation are closely linked.

Not surprisingly, optimistic students do better in almost everything than their defeatist peers. One of the most important observations from the classroom is that optimism can be learned.

Given the right opportunities, the most defeatist student can be turned around.
The process, utilizing chess, is amazingly simple and effective. Essentially, the problem with defeatist students is that they have been defeated so many times they have gotten used to the idea that they don't do well at anything. A child who lives with criticism, blame and negation all the time has very little reason to feel good about his prospects in any activity.

There are really two issues here. One is the constant barrage of criticism that has led to the defeatist attitude. The other is the lack of examples of success in their lives. The solution is to address both of these at the same time.

We simply must show that we care about them and that we believe in their ability to succeed. We demonstrate our care by spending time with them and by helping and encouraging them. We put them in position to achieve some successes. These can be very small steps at first, but even the smallest step forward is going in the right direction. And that a trusted adult is encouraging them is every bit as important as the accomplishments.

Because chess can be broken down into extremely small parts - identifying rows of squares going from side to side, naming squares, moving a rook correctly, attacking a piece, attacking two pieces at once, trapping a king - with very little difficulty a teacher can structure exercises for even the lowest functioning child to meet with success while offering enough of a challenge to make the activities worthwhile.

Once a student feels the first flush of success, and feels approval from the teacher, the next step up the ladder is seen to be reachable. After several such steps, the child looks down and sees that she has come quite a long way. With that success, an innate enthusiasm that takes over, and the child seeks more mental stimulation, like a flower searching for sunlight. Pretty soon the child discovers the rewards of persistence.

With good timing, the teacher can confront the child with a truly difficult situation. If by this point the rewards of persistence have been strong enough, the child can make a significant leap in her emotional development. Gradually, the defeatist attitude gives way to confidence.

As long as the teacher is careful to keep the exercises at the challenging level - where the student can succeed with a little effort - the child's confidence will continue to grow. The pattern is simple:

Success - Confidence - Optimism - Success

One thing should be fairly clear in this paradigm: the much-ballyhooed issue of self-esteem is taken off the table. I have been a little distressed from time to time at how people treat the question of self-esteem. I have seen people in the schools talk it to death, trying to convince the archetypal little Johnny that he should feel good about himself, even when there is nothing he can find to feel good about.

The trick is to give little Johnny an opportunity to actually do something he can feel good about. Self-esteem rises with accomplishment. Nobody is going to call you stupid if you just beat them at chess. And if you win a chess trophy, nobody else will either.

Another aspect of emotional intelligence is empathy. While we don't normally associate empathy with chess, nevertheless, chess gives an alert teacher ample opportunity to reach this area as well.

Quite often for children, beating someone is not enough. They want to do a celebratory dance to further humiliate their opponent. It doesn't take much of a conversation to get them to realize that they would be angry if someone did that to them. All they have to do is look at their partner to see that anger is in fact the reaction such rude behavior engenders. A little taste of empathy and compassion starts to flavor their behavior after that.

From there, the reasons for good sportsmanship become clear. Shaking hands before and after the game is not just a perfunctory ritual. The handshake before the game says "I will play fair, and even though I want to beat you, I will show respect for the rules of chess and for you as a person." The handshake after the game says, "Thank you for the game. I enjoyed our battle, and although we just tried to beat each other, the game is over now and so is the competition between us."

Watching little Brian and Lisa, I saw children who had mastered impulse control at age eight. In the third grade, they were already in their fourth year of studying chess. Discipline was so ingrained in them that we didn't even discuss it anymore. The ability to concentrate had long since been mastered. They had absorbed many lessons in chess technique, they had played in twenty tournaments a year since first grade, they had traveled to some of Manhattan's prestigious private schools, they had been to the state tournament in Rochester, and had flown to California, Arizona, and Illinois. In all these places, they played chess with children they would otherwise never have seen. They made friends, challenged stereotypes, and had their own stereotypical thinking exposed. As part of their tournament preparation, they had had learned the importance of good sportsmanship, rest and nutrition. Above all, they had learned never to quit.

Although they were among the most successful children to play the game, such a high level of accomplishment is not necessary to get the benefits of chess.

Time and again students in the classroom with no tournament experience would tell me that chess helped them avoid a fight, gave them an idea for how to solve a math problem, or kept them from giving up on a difficult question.

Success was something they and their friends learned, one small step at a time. As their thinking skills accumulated, they had more and more reason to continue. Through the upward spiral of accomplishment leading to confidence leading to optimism leading to more accomplishment, and thus greater confidence and even more optimism, they learned life skills that will last them well into adulthood.

This great game is more than the touchstone of the human intellect, although if that were all it contributed to a scholastic setting, that alone would be well worth the effort. But it is also the touchstone of our emotional development, and that makes it twice as valuable.

Now I want to emphasize that chess itself does not do those things. It's the teacher and the students working together utilizing chess to inculcate the complex thought processes, the social skills and the emotional intelligences that make it work. Chess gives teachers the opportunities to help the children at every level.

That it works is shown by a comment from the principal at the middle school members of our chess team attended: "the chess kids are a different breed of student here. They are more confident, more articulate and more focused. You can see the difference even in the way they walk down the hall. They carry themselves with more dignity."

Currently many schools have implemented after school chess programs and have active clubs and teams. A few schools have even, as Sylvia did, put chess into the curriculum.

Sylvia knew what she was doing when she introduced chess as part of the curriculum in her school. I can think of no better educational tool for preparing our children for adulthood.