| Life tends to favor those who possess the ability to think effectively before acting. That is one reason why there is such a focus on teaching cognitive skills to young children at home and in school. A country with more thinkers is likely to find itself in a better overall situation than one with fewer such persons.
What then is a failsafe way to develop more smart, problem-solving people? By teaching the game of chess, that’s how.
Study after study over the past three decades, from all areas of the globe, have shown that the fostering of a chess culture in groups of young children yields numerous benefits, including significant gains in reading, math, and science capabilities, along with boosts in IQ scores. Students who learn and play chess perform better in local tests, and in standardized national or regional testing. Other pluses include improved levels of self-esteem, memory, and organizational skills.
I have personal knowledge regarding many of the noted benefits, and was therefore very pleased to see a recent news item detailing efforts to create a Caribbean Chess Union to provide the region with more of a voice in the World Chess Federation. The chess federations in Guyana, Jamaica, the Netherland Antilles, and Suriname are the principal movers in the endeavor.
It would be great to see St. Kitts and Nevis join such an initiative. Why not help to promote an activity that has no downsides, and a multitude of positives? In terms of a local group, there is an online reference from 2006 to a St. Kitts and Nevis Chess Association but not much else, so I’m not sure how active the organization is right now.
Not that I’m an exceptional player (just the opposite, in fact), but it is easy for me to extol the many advantages of learning chess. While living in Central Florida, a friend and I took the initiative to introduce the game to youngsters who spent afternoons on weekends at a local community center. We explained the many benefits of doing so to center administrators, and they agreed to let us proceed.
It was a bit dicey at first, and only a few kids seemed really interested. However, as we faithfully showed up week after week, the number of trainees gradually increased until something closer to a real chess club developed. Eventually, I moved away from the area and lost touch with the program and participants, but on occasion I wonder how many young lives were positively altered due to the introduction of a humble chess board and pieces.
So, why does chess engender such benefits for players? One reason is that it presents a varied and consistently high level of problems to solve, as well as offering immediate rewards or punishment for efforts at problem-solving. It also creates a pattern of individual thinking that when used faithfully, breeds success. Chess also stimulates youngsters (and adults, alike) to become practiced at seeking out alternative strategies to handle problems, leading to higher degrees of personal originality.
In over 30 countries, teaching chess is a part of the national school curriculum. For example, in New Brunswick, Canada, students in grades 2 to 7 were taught chess as part of a mathematics program to learn logic and problem-solving. In the wake of the program’s introduction, the average problem-solving scores improved from 62 percent to 81 percent. The province where the program was initiated touts the highest collective math grades in the country.
Learning chess also helps to develop a longer attention span in children, as well as aiding in socialization skills, and has helped at-risk children in such diverse places as Oakland, California, to Harlem, New York, to avoid lives filled with drugs and crime.
In short, the game of chess develops planning, intellectual, decision-making, concentration, and perseverance skills in any individual. It is a mentally challenging activity that attracts not only the more gifted students, but also those on all levels of achievement. Chess does this by making it fun to exercise and develop cognitive skills, as learning in a game setting is often more interesting, and therefore more fruitful, than in a formal teaching environment.
It is an endlessly absorbing activity, as no two chess games are ever identical, leaving players to formulate new and more advanced ideas with every game. A player is in control of their own ‘soldiers’ and can direct them to attack the ‘enemy’ in any manner encompassed by the rules, with the ultimate objective of storming the fortress walls and capturing the opponent’s King. It is never boring.
On a wider scale, chess can become the vehicle for travel around the world, as tournaments are open to players at all skill levels. It is a universal language, of sorts, and can easily be played between two persons from different countries who might not otherwise be able to communicate with one another. The online chess scene is just as dynamic, and it is not hard to find persons in a multitude of locales around the globe to play via the Internet.
It would be a laudable development to see the teaching of chess expanded in the Federation, perhaps with the ultimate aim of joining the Caribbean Chess Union, should it be successfully established. |
