Kids hooked on chess at McKenzie School
October 16, 2008
By KAREN BERKOWITZ
Christina Pegg seemed mighty pleased with her chess move, but she wasn’t gloating — an attitude that doesn’t fit well with the values of courtesy and respect taught in McKenzie School’s kindergarten chess program.
“I castled the king,” exclaimed Christina, who re-enacted the steps she’d taken to move her rook into the protective position for instructor Shiva Maharaj, who gave her a congratulatory high-five.
On this Monday morning, 20 kindergarten youngsters at McKenzie are receiving chess instruction from teachers with Chess-Ed, a not-for-profit vendor that provides coaches to school clubs and teams in the area.
McKenzie has supported a robust after-school chess program since 2003 and possesses a packed trophy case to prove it. Players who got their start at McKenzie, a kindergarten-through-fourth-grade school, have gone on to compete on championship teams at Highcrest Middle School and Wilmette Junior High School.
In 2007, the kindergarten club was broken off from the first-through- fourth-grade program and scheduled between the school’s morning and afternoon kindergarten sessions.
Helps students focus
Parent coordinator Margaret Drier believes chess is popular with parents because of the game’s ability to help children focus and concentrate — skills essential for school.
Unlike the frenzied pace of a quick-reflex video game, chess rewards strategic thinking. The games uses both sides of the brain, say the coaches, and requires both mathematical and creative skills.
“A lot of times kids like to play the first move they see,” Maharaj said. “I call that impulse playing; they don’t think it through.”
But in chess, as in life, impetuous mistakes prove instructive.
“One of the key lessons we try to teach is that in chess, you are always a winner,” said Alice Holt, one of the instructors. “You might win the game — that’s immediate.”
Here is the full story.
Go Shiva!