Articles on Chess

Chess lovers have long contended that chess should be a valuable classroom tool. It can provide an in­tellectually stimulating, rewarding activity, but it can also teach discipline, concentra­tion, planning and all the other good things that go into successful chess...

Jo Coudert, writes about how a caring teacher and the game of chess changed lives in the ghetto

..."A whoosh of flame startled teacher Bill Hall as he walked into his classroom. Whirling around, he saw 15-Year-­old Jose Tavarez holding a lighter to a spray can of seodorant. "Make bueno blowtorch," the Puerto Rican teenager was explaining to a classmate..."

Chess has been part of the curriculum for most Russian schools for over 40 years. Adolescents were encouraged to play chess at a very early age to increase their problem solving and reasoning skills. The gifted students were chosen and studied under the supervision of former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik.

Adrian de Groot, a psychologist in the 1960's became very interested in the use of chess as an educational tool...

My son is now 11. Diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), he has had real social and behavioral difficulties since he was 18 months old...
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...today he is a straight A student and his behavioral problems are minimal (but not trivial). He is enthusiastic about the friendships he has made, spends time organizing himself (a difficult task for AHDH children), is quite respectful, and has learned to control his temper by taking himself out of the class and going to the library to play chess. His social skills (quite atrocious until recently) have improved significantly. His language skills have also improved noticeably. He does algebra in his head...

Chess is variously described as a science, an art and a sport. It has the virtue of being completely free of the element of luck: the result of each game depends entirely upon the skill of the players. A youngster who plays chess soon learns that he or she cannot blame failure on anyone else. Results are completely due to a child's own abilities and efforts and a child must take responsibility for his or her own actions. Victory is earned and can be savored as a personal accomplishment...

The game of chess makes one of the most important contributions to the field of education. Inherent in it are the basic principles of psychological learning theory: Memory, Pattern Recognition, Decision making, and Reinforcement. All of these variables interact during a game of chess and produce the results of the human thought process: a win or a loss. Chess is a closed system. The number of possible moves and variations is finite, although this number is extremely large....

Chess has long been recognized throughout the world as a builder of strong intellects, but only recently has the United States begun to recognize chess's ability to improve the cognitive abilities, rational thinking and reasoning of even the least promising children. Chess brings out latent abilities that have not been reached by traditional educational means.....