‘Chess is our football’
Game builds positive school culture, cognitive skills for life
Max Sartin’s hobby helps him focus, but that’s not why he plays.
“I like chess because it’s a mini-game of fighting,” the first-grader said, rearranging plastic arms and legs to transmute his Transformer from robot to vehicle as he waited for the second round in the tournament to begin.
In Max’s mind, the kings and queens wield bows and arrows as he calculates their advance toward each other on the board. When he plays against his grandpa at home, he usually wins. “It’s kind of like you’re playing a math problem,” he says.
Max attends Ida Freeman Elementary School in Edmond, where the chess club is celebrating its 20th anniversary. In its first year, it was exclusive to a handful of fifth-graders, but over the years, its popularity has permeated, and in some ways defined, the school culture. Last year, the club welcomed kindergartners for the first time. Those 4- and 5-year-olds, whom coaches affectionately call “the Littles,” went on to win the state championship for their grade.
David Nichols, a fifth-grade math and science teacher, said it all started when he noticed children choosing chess as an option during inside recess. He decided to make the gatherings official. Today, his chess club has 80 members, meets for three hours after school each Tuesday, and travels to all-day tournaments on Saturdays throughout the year. The game is so popular, there are 150 chess boards in the building. Even kids who aren’t active in the club play with friends before school.
“Chess is our football, is what the principal calls it,” Nichols said.
Building classroom skills
Robbyn Glinsmann, director of elementary mathematics for the state Education Department, has seen direct benefits of chess in the classroom from her work as an instructional coach in Edmond Public Schools and at Ida Freeman.
Although the game does not target specific learning objectives, she says frequent gameplay can heighten cognitive skills needed to strengthen performance in multiple subject areas.
“Chess is a high-intensity game that requires patience, dedication and problem solving. You must think ahead two to three steps and see what is coming next. When a curveball is thrown by the opponent, you have to rethink your strategy on the fly and within split seconds,” Glinsmann said. “This mental toughness activates both sides of the brain and builds stamina within the player. This stamina spills over into the classroom as students are now seen as risktakers and can concentrate more because of the muscle memory built within them.”
Nichols says chess is particularly helpful for visual learn- ers to develop spatial reasoning skills — if a piece is repositioned, how will the board look different? Spatial reasoning is used by architects when they design buildings, by authors visualizing characters, by chemists who study the three-dimensional structure of a molecule, by surgeons to navigate the human body and by sculptors who see a masterpiece within a mound of clay.
Nichols said teachers can use chess as an entry point for instruction, capitalizing on a player’s increased ability to focus on multistep scenarios.
Advait Patel, 15, is Oklahoma’s first international master, as ranked by the World Chess Federation.
Naturally competitive, the four-time state champion attends Carl Albert High School in Midwest City and is captivated by the strategy required in the game. He says chess has improved his performance in school and helped spark his interest in computer science.
“Last year, we had a programming project where we had to make a game. Sometimes you have to break processes down into stages and just manage one part at a time. That’s kind of like how you make a plan in chess,” said Advait, who added that chess has given him more clarity for planning and calculation.
‘It knows no barriers’
Educators see chess, a game that dates to the 6th century, as an equalizer. With a basic chess set costing less than $10, rules that are easy to explain and diligence the key to success, anyone can learn to play, Glinsmann said.
“The amazing thing to me is that chess is accessible by any age, race, religion or gender of a student,” Glinsmann said. “It knows no barriers and can be mastered by anyone who is willing to work.”
Nichols said academic progress is not an indicator of success in chess. He has seen students of all types pick up the game, whether on individualized education programs or in accelerated classes.
In fact, he said it was a special-needs child who won a state championship that inspired him to keep the club going for so long.
“He brought his trophy in, set it on the table, looked at me across the table and said, ‘Mr. Nichols, thank you for teaching me how to play chess.’ I said you’re welcome. He said, ‘No really, because I ain’t never been good at anything in school the way I’m good at this.’ That fueled my passion,” Nichols said.
Nichols said chess helps prepare kids for the real world.
“Chess teaches so many life lessons. A lot of kids are good at a lot of things when they first try it. Chess is not one of those things,” Nichols said. “Everyone has to go through a period of paying dues. Chess punishes bad decision-making just like life does.”