Schools Chess Club is Very Relative.

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 4, 2008

LAND O’ LAKES – For the Levisons, an after-school chess club at Pine View Elementary is a family affair.

The club got its start when 7-year-old Josh was looking for an activity after a hip disease put him in a wheelchair and left his dream of playing youth soccer in a holding pattern. His 8-year-old sister, Bree, also participates.

So do about 20 other children who meet each Friday to challenge each other across a chessboard and to learn tips from instructors from a chess club that is based in Temple Terrace.

For Josh, it started with a half-day chess camp last summer.

“When I came to pick him up, he said he wanted to stay the whole day,” said his mother, Lisa Levison. “He just loves it.”

Levison, who volunteers at the school, thought Pine View could use an after-school chess club, and the principal agreed with her. On a recent Friday, 10 games were in progress in the school’s media center as instructors Jeff York and James Barber monitored the action and offered advice.

To view a photo gallery of Pine View’s chess club, go to TBO.com, Keyword: Chess.

Ronnie Blair

Even in Tough Times, School Chess Program Has Right Moves.

From Amanda Gordon, The N.Y. Sun

A champion of giving, Lewis Cullman, acknowledged Tuesday night at the Chess-in-the-Schools benefit that the economy is making it more difficult for organizations to raise money.

However, Chess-in-the-Schools, which last year taught chess and improved the academic prospects for 20,000 students in the public schools, hasn’t felt the pinch.

“We’ve done it again this year: We’ve raised more than $1 million, in a year when people are very concerned, when people are suddenly giving excuses. Our donors do not.”

Perhaps they can’t say no to Mr. Cullman or the other persuasive board members, such as Cody Smith and Muffy Flouret. Or perhaps Chess-in-the-Schools supporters can’t say no because the gala is so successful at conveying the benefits of the program.

The organization gets its message across by inviting students not only to attend the event, but to make their presence, and their stories, known.

Tony Thompson, 18, has been involved with Chess-in-the-Schools since he was 8. He attended the event in a new suit purchased for the occasion at Access Men’s Clothing in the Kings Plaza mall. The Brooklyn Technical High School senior has been accepted into 10 colleges and wants to be a doctor. By the time he talked to me at the end of the cocktail hour, he’d already told about a dozen other guests his story. He had also played some chess (his favorite opening moves: Queen’s Gambit for white, Sicilian Defense for black).

“Playing chess has been a confidence boost. You learn how to think ahead. I’m glad I stuck with it because it helped me get into college,” Mr. Thompson said.

Chess also teaches valuable life lessons.

“I’ve lost a lot of games, and every loss gives you a burning desire to do better,” a junior at Stuyvesant High School, Mahfuzer Miah, said. “It’s how well you play at the moment. People don’t worry about their past defeats.”

The program provides chess lessons and weekly tournament experience, as well as academic tutoring, mentoring, college counseling, and travel opportunities. In addition to deploying its own instructors, last year the organization launched a program to train public school teachers to become chess instructors, which was funded by a grant from the City Council.

“Players continually must face new positions and new problems. They cannot solve these by using a simple formula or relying on memorized answers,” the executive director of Chess-in-the-Schools, Marley Kaplan said. “Instead, they must analyze and calculate while relying on a dose of creativity — skills that increasingly mirror what students must confront in their schoolwork and life.”

Robin MacNeil presented $3,500 checks from Chess-in-the-Schools to three seniors, to help them with college expenses: Mr. Thompson, Khalid Francis and Akil Griffiths.

Mr. MacNeil also confessed his personal deficiencies at chess, dating back to a match he played in college, against his girlfriend’s 6-year-old brother. He lost. “And the girlfriend didn’t last either — her choice,” Mr. MacNeil said.

agordon@nysun.com

Read Entire Story Here.

UTD Chess Program.

Brief interviews with top world players studying at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Youtube video from Littlepeasant .

Idaho Turns to Chess as Education Strategy.

By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN – N.Y. Times

Once a week, Deborah McCoy, a third-grade teacher in Donnelly, Idaho, unpacks chessboards and pieces and spends an hour teaching her 20 students how to play the game.

Mrs. McCoy does not do this because she is passionate about chess; she barely knew how to play before this school year. But she began teaching it as part of an unusual pilot program under way in more than 100 second- and third-grade classrooms across Idaho.

On Thursday, state officials will announce in Boise that the program will be extended in the fall to all second and third graders — making Idaho the first state to offer a statewide chess curriculum.

The state’s $1.5 billion education budget, passed two weeks ago, includes a guarantee to finance the instruction. Tom Luna, the state’s superintendent of education, said participation by teachers would be voluntary, but if reaction to the pilot program is any measure, interest will be great.

There are no studies showing that teaching chess has benefits for children, but there is anecdotal evidence, Mr. Luna said.

“One of the things that we hear is that too much of what we do is based on rote memorization,” Mr. Luna said. “The part I really like about this program is that kids are thinking ahead.”

Mrs. McCoy said she has been pleased with the results.

“So many kids spend their time plugged into video games, iPods, television and so they are more isolated,” she said. “They learn give and take in chess. There are courtesies that you follow. It has been really beneficial for them.”

Idaho has 40,000 second and third graders, and Mr. Luna estimated the instruction will cost about $200,000 to $250,000 a year, although it could run as much as $600,000 “if everybody jumped on it the first year,” he said. The money is expected to come from reducing administrative expenses in the school system, though state officials said they had not yet identified where the savings would be made.

Idaho is using a curriculum called First Move, which was developed by America’s Foundation for Chess, a nonprofit, Seattle-based organization that promotes teaching chess in school. First Move is now taught to 25,000 students in 18 states, according to Wendi Fischer, the vice president of the foundation.

Rourke O’Brien, the foundation’s president, said the idea to introduce chess into Idaho’s school system arose out of a discussion between Erik Anderson, the foundation’s founder, and Roy Lewis Eiguren, a lawyer and lobbyist who lives in Idaho.

Mr. Anderson and Mr. Eiguren sit on the board of the Avista Corporation, an energy company based in neighboring Washington. After hearing about the benefits of teaching chess, Mr. Eiguren set up a dinner early last year and invited Mr. Luna, Karen McGee, an education-policy adviser to the governor, and three Republican state lawmakers — Representatives Eric Anderson (no relation to Erik Anderson) and Bob Nonini, and Senator John W. Goedde.

The dinner participants agreed to create the pilot program, and Mr. Nonini volunteered to provide $600 of his own money to pay for one of the classrooms in his district for a year, Mr. O’Brien said. The rest of the cost, about $60,000, was paid by the state.

First Move differs from some other chess-in-school programs in that it is taught by classroom teachers and is intended as a curriculum enhancement for second and third graders. It incorporates elements of math, history and vocabulary.

Teachers who wish to use it do not need to know chess. They are trained at seminars over a day or two before the school year starts, and are provided with an instructional DVD, a DVD player, chess sets, boards, online resources and a manual. Every other week, an experienced player is available to answer questions.

Mrs. McCoy said her town was so remote — Donnelly is about a two-hour drive from Boise — that the expert player, Mark Morales, was available only online, but she had found that was adequate. She said it was good for her students to be exposed to a sophisticated game like chess.

“Donnelly is approximately 250 people,” she said. “We are right smack dab in the mountains. Most of our kids live on ranches or in small towns.”

Read story in it’s entirety here.

Doeberl Cup 2008.

An introductory video to the O2C 46th Doeberl Cup chess tournament, held in Canberra, Australia. Provides a quick snapshot of the area and the venue. Youtube video from doebercup.

Wenatchee Scholastic Chess.

Youtube video from Wenatcheeworld.

The Wenatchee World Website.

Chess Posters From The Dayton Chess Club.

Here’s a short youtube montage of Chess related posters that was uploaded by DaytonChessClub.

Dayton Chess Club Website.