James F Delaney Elementary 4th grade teachers, Mrs. Hannon and Mrs. Murrell, are sponsoring the Delaney Chess Club this year. Students had their first meeting of the Chess Club on October 22nd.
According to the teachers, some of the students had a blast learning how to play while other students were moving on to a more advanced level of playing chess. {{more}}
Schools across the country are including chess in before/after school programs
Sixth through eighth grade science teacher, Geary Crofford in Tahlequah, Ok, started a chess club four years ago.
JFD Elementary introduces the game to students.
?It improves concentration, sportsmanship, problem-solving skills, as well as the use reason and logic,? Crofford said. ?Also within a school you need to provide a variety of actives and opportunities for students to engage in. They may find something they particularly like or that they are good at and that can flow over into things like their grades or their social nature.?
Kennedale High School has had a chess club for a number of years. KHS math teacher, Simon Arnspiger, had a chess club for 8 years at the school.“I started it at the request of two of my students,” said Arnspiger. “It was also offered as a flex days class for 2-3 years. Partly, it was offered to help students develop their skills at planning and strategy.” But Arnspiger added, “The last two years have been hard to draw the students in as the number of after school programs options have increased with the start of the ACE program last year.” But, he hopes to start it back up again soon.
Chess is thought to have originated in Eastern India in the Gupta Empire from 280-550 CE and continued to evolve until about the 19th century. Many people revere chess as an avenue of self-improvement because of the varying levels of strategy and tactics involved in the game.
For the fun of it, counts too.
American forefather Benjamin Franklin wrote in article in 1732 titled ?The Morals of Chess? and in so wrote that through chess people can learn foresight, circumspection – the relation of the several pieces, and their relative situations- and caution.
All that aside, the teachers at Delaney said the students were just have a ?blast? learning. That?s a good thing.
