BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum

Subject: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 03:26 AM

this should be taught in schools, it helps problem solving, helps planning ahead observation etc.
soduku should also be used to help logical thinking

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 04:53 AM

I'm all for it being include as a recreation but if it is made into a task then all the fun is taken away. The layout of the board, the basic moves of each piece and, perhaps, some openings and obvious traps, can be taught. Once that has been covered, let the kids play during wet lunchtimes and work things out for themselves. Deeper strategy is only of interest to those who are interested in it.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 06:44 AM

I'd like to see evidence that games and puzzles, no matter how sophisticated, help much with logical thinking, etc. Strikes me that some eminent chess grandmasters have been complete twots.

At my primary school I was top of a class of almost fifty, even when I'd been put up into the year above (yes, don't say it, downhill all the way...), but, in the class chess competition, I was knocked out in the first round after four moves by the class dunce. If you think this explains the somewhat jaundiced view expressed in my first paragraph, you may not be far wrong... 🙄

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 07:08 AM

Have never been any sort of player myself, tho have known the moves from very early age. But I think there is a correlation between performance in such games as chess & bridge, & linguistic & mathematical ability. I have a 1st-cousin who is Emeritus Professor of Chinese at the Australian National University, whose his first discipline at London Univ was maths, but learnt Japanese during Far Eastern service as officer in REME & went on postwar to win ½-blues in both these games in post-grad time studying for M.Litt in Medieval Chinese at Cambridge; then went on to doctorate at Sorbonne. He is now in his 90s but still keeping up intellectual interests.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 07:56 AM

My opinion only, not by any means a settled view, but I've always thought that playing a lot of chess helps you to be good at chess, playing a lot of sudoku helps you to be good at sudoku, doing crosswords a lot makes you good at doing crosswords, doing a lot of IQ tests makes you good at doing IQ tests and using a metronome makes you good at keeping up with a metronome. Evidence that these things improve mental skills more generally, or stave off dementia, etc., is notoriously hard to obtain. That is not to say that they are not good things, but there isn't enough to go on to say that they should be prescribed as mainstream educational tools. The null hypothesis has yet to be defeated.

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 08:01 AM

I've never had to type the word "sudoku" in my life before, and, a rare event for me, the spellchecker leapt in to my rescue. Turn it on, Dick! 😂

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Vashta Nerada
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 08:55 AM

Chess has analogies to real-life situations, and if you played a lot of chess in school (I did - high school age, after school, mostly) you find it very helpful. And even all these years later and not playing chess often, I still find it helpful, in at least verbalizing challenges or articulating real-world puzzles I'm trying to solve.

I agree with Dick. It doesn't need to be a huge part of the curriculum, but it wouldn't hurt as an elective, at some point through the K-12 experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Charmion
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 09:05 AM

I don't do sudoku, so I cannot comment on that, but I have some experience with both chess and crosswords.

The thing about chess is that players have to think through the potential consequences of their moves if they are to win, so it teaches players to identify threats, assess the level of risk from each threat, and identify the least costly action to counter each threat. These are critical life skills, but playing chess is educational only if players also learn to transfer the skill from the context of chess to the rest of their lives. Clearly, the world of chess is full of twots who never learned to do that (we're looking at you, Bobby Fischer).

A good crossword puzzle forces solvers to ransack their mental trove of trivia for details they might never otherwise bother to retain, let alone recall; for example, everything I know about major-league baseball, golf, and all forms of American collegiate sport was learned in order to solve the New York Times crossword puzzle. Other people might be driven to Google for the names of television actors, Second World War generals, or types of igneous rock. The puzzle itself has little value, but its random nature takes the solver into territory that might otherwise never be explored. I believe that is a Good Thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 09:15 AM

Don't think I'd want to see chess on the school curriculum, but it would be a good tool for a teacher who could pull it off. Same with cribbage and other classic games. They're a valuable part of our culture. The nun who was our seventh grade teacher taught us knitting, and we had a great time of that. And I was in a harmonica band in the fifth grade, and have enjoyed (but not mastered) the harmonica ever since. But if such things are on the curriculum, they lose their feeling of spontaneity, and then they're no longer fun for either teachers or students.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 09:36 AM

Well posting to the BS section often has me ransacking my mental trove of trivia AND looking things up, often extensively, yet some would say that it's still a confounded bloody waste of time. You're making a case, but you haven't presented any evidence that what you say is borne out. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I am sceptical. Yes, crosswords and chess engage the brain for a while as you're doing them, but lasting benefits? Evidence please!

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 09:50 AM

Can't do chess, as I asaid above; but do lotas of crossoqwrds -- the English cryptic kindm rather than the US big-asq

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 10:03 AM

Can't do chess, as I said above; but do lots of crosswords -- the English cryptic kind rather than the US big-square sort -- Times & Guardian every morning, Spectator weekly, &c. Have won a couple of small prizes over the years, but that isn't the motivation — they only go to the first opened, so are a lottery really rather than a genuine reward!. They have been part of my life since my long-ago teenage. It is all for my pleasure and occupation-in-retirement lately; & not done primarily with any utilitarian motive. But I hope, aet 84, that they may prove of some effect in staving off the dreaded Alzheimers & suchlike terrors to the aged!

≈M≈

But I forgot the name 'Alzheimers' and had to google it: hope that doesn't mean...

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 10:27 AM

Every morning at 9.30 there's a Daily Challenge on Radio 3. You get about 20 minutes to text or email your answer. Sometimes it's three clues as to a person, place or musical instrument, or it could be naming the composers associated with an excerpt, or it could be a pop song that uses a classical tune for you to identify, or it could be identifying a piece that's been played backwards. I manage to have a bash about three or four times a week. I've had my name read out 23 times so far. Get a life, Shaw, eh? 😂😂😂

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 10:43 AM

Au contraire, Steve, That is a life -- a very worthwhile occupation, which is surely helping to maintain your physical & intellectual health.

Enjoy!

— & benefit!!

Back to this fortnight's Private Eye crossie...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 12:31 PM

... which I have now finished, & e-mailed the solution in. It has the biggest prize of all, £100, which I did once win many years ago; so maybe my crossword gnome will let me win it once more before I go to where I might even, who know, get to meet him...

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 12:47 PM

Just a BTW anecdote. The last school I taught at before retiring 30 years ago, used to have an "activities week" at the ends of terms, in which the timetable was suspended and each member of staff offered an activity which pupils could choose among. I did a crossword week once. Photocopied Times puzzles, & we would each have a copy & solve them together -- about 25 in the group. There was some correlation between top set pupils and cruciverbal ability; but not entirely so. A few years later, I met the overall most brilliant pupil from that crossword group, but who had not been all that outstanding at the puzzles, while she was studying at Cambridge after 6th-form college. We chatted of this & that. "I remember your crossword group," she told me. "I opted for it to see if I could learn to cope with them. But I still can't do them!"
Even so, she went on to first in maths from Cambridge...

Another educationally useful game BTW could be Yahtze. But as to whether such games should be parts of the regular curriculum, as the thread topic suggests, or retain their freshness by remaining interesting leisure activities as Joe pleads above 0915AM...

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 05:22 PM

so maybe my crossword gnome will let me win it once more

I'll have a word with him...

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 07:45 PM

Games of strategy can be good teaching tools up to a point. The problem is that not everyone places a high enough value on winning a game to spend the time and effort involved in mastering it. What does a kid get for winning a game of chess? He gets to say he won. Big deal. That's not enough of a reward for some people. But someone who isn't interested in winning at chess might be willing to devote hours to learning the strategic skills needed to become a good hunter or fisherman. The difference is that you can't eat a chess game.

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 08:20 PM

Only so many hours in the school day. Kids sitting about getting obese: no to chess, get 'em up running, dancing, doing drama,singing, burning off those calories in the sugar-loaded drinks.
And at a time when schools are cutting back on music education, just please don't!

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 09:27 PM

I agree. I was a teacher for 25 years and I never felt easy about the fact that kids were supposed to sit in a classroom for five or six hours a day doing "subjects," then having to go home to do hours of "homework." I never really worked out what the answer was, but I damn well knew that we were not working towards it!

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Apr 16 - 10:01 PM

I think that play may well be the best kind of education there is. If it's fun, kids will learn - and play works in teaching adults, too.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Apr 16 - 03:34 AM

tattie bogle
well there is no reaqson why chess music and sport cannot all be encouraged why one or the other.
why do children get obese , well it is not just lack of exercise, it is also to do with food, particularly junk food and what food is contaminated with, possibly palm oil and some of the other additives.

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Apr 16 - 09:19 AM

We were never 'taught' chess at school, bu a couple of dedicated teachers set up a chess club after hours and volunteered their time to keep it running - still active when I left (don't think the school's there any more).
I learned to play without the pressure of competition, which was there if you chose it in the form of a Liverpool schools league (I was sent to represent my school against The Liverpool Collegiate but, to my eternal shame, could find the right room).
I was entered into a display competition by on of the teachers - a chess master played against 20 young players, walking around the room to make his move in turn - he beat us all, but I managed to be third to last to go.
Sadly, my impatience got the better of me and I finally stopped playing altogether because I became irritated at the long pauses between moves (too to bringing along a book, which, I understand, put the oher players off).
The same impatience led to my abandoning at least three musical instruments without ever being able to plany any of them to a satisfying standard, so far and no further - ah well - who knows what the world lost!!!
Nowadays I can't find anybody to play with around here, though I have little doubt that I've lost any of the skills I might have - so I'll stick to Codeword and the Irish Times Crossheir.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: JenBurdoo
Date: 14 Apr 16 - 10:12 AM

Here's one of my favorite links on the subject of educational games and how they (should) work, which I've used to good effect as a youth librarian:

Games and Learning

The chess club at my regular branch has at least 25 people every week, and at my current branch I leave a chess set on one of the tables and often see people playing it. I try to incorporate gaming as often as possible; it's less about teaching than about fun, and as Dr. Bartle says the learning should be incidental. I've added Kerbal Space Program to the teen tech lab Macs, and the kids have learned (without realizing it) a little about aerodynamics. I also ran a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for three months, and got them doing art and reading fantasy novels out of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Apr 16 - 11:42 AM

Jim you could always play against the computer, its less of a waste of time than facebook.

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Apr 16 - 12:16 PM

"Jim you could always play against the computer"
I actually enjoyed the human tooing and froing of the game, in the end, more than the game itself.
The only time I talk to my computer is to swear at the ******* when it goes wrong.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Apr 16 - 01:40 PM

Thanks, Dave·the·Gnome.

Look forward to visit from your Cousin Crossword

〠

Subject: RE: BS: Chess in the primary school curriculum
From: Jim McLean
Date: 15 Apr 16 - 04:55 AM

Growing up in Paisley, in a poor area, we thought, incorrectly, chess was for the well off, a "snobbish" game. Later in life I realised the purpose of the game was to get the King, a good republican game, so I learned it immediately!!