Chess in class: Good move or bad deal?
10:00 PM CDT on Sunday, October 14, 2007
By Dave Fehling / 11 News
Classes might be over for the day, but at a private school in Sugar Land, the kids aren’t leaving. In fact, they’re still thinking, deeply … so they can win at chess.
All over Houston, kids are playing chess at school.
Some believe the game makes kids smarter.
As a result, at public schools where there’s intense pressure for kids to do well on state-mandated tests, chess is becoming a part of the curriculum.
The schools are paying companies like America’s Foundation for Chess to teach teachers how to incorporate chess into their classes.
“Actually chess is a great idea. Because chess is an amazing tool to teach kids to think,” Wendi Fischer, the company’s lead instructor, said.
Spring ISD is among the districts that have bought into the idea.
In a proposal to the district, the Foundation showed Spring how teaching chess could help meet TAKS objectives for things like algebraic reasoning.
Still, not everyone thinks it’s a great move.
“I’d call it arrogance,” Tom Matthews said.
Matthews lives in the Spring district and often takes the school board to task over how it spends tax money.
He was not happy when he learned about documents that show the district paid $129,000 to America’s Chess Foundation – money that got them DVDs, a DVD player, chess sets and training.
The training took place on a cruise ship.
“The idea of using your summertime and taxpayer dollars to go on a cruise to learn how to play chess, that just hits me at the pit of my stomach,” Matthews said.
Here is the full story.
This guy has a legitimate concern. Yes, we believe that chess can help some kids learn that they can use their minds to plan, to think about actions and consequences and to look long term. But it doesn’t take a cruise. The intermediate school districts often are helpful with special education but this isn’t the first time that questionable spending has occurred at this level – just google intermediate school district scandal and most states and you’ll find many examples.
I bet that Matthews guy is griping because he didn’t get to go!
But seriously if it turns out that going on the cruise is going to cost the same or less than doing it at a nearby Holiday Inn, then why not? It just “looks” bad but if it isn’t really, then what’s the big deal?
scugrad, The fact that it costs the same to do it at the Holiday Inn just means that the people taking the seminar there really got screwed, not that the cruise is a reasonable way to spend the money.
Yes I agree. If a seminar at the Holiday Inn costs same as a cruise, then the Holiday Inn is asking for way too much. And if the district paid for Holiday Inn, then THEY need to be taking chess lessons more than the kids.
Well, there are alternatives.
At Ho Math and Chess, not only chess is taught, chess is actually integrated with math workbooks so children will get direct benefits by working on those innovative math and chess workbooks.
What happens to those children in schools who do not particularily like to play chess? Ho Math and Chess offers the solution, whether you like chess, do not like chess or like it somwwhat, at Ho Math and Chess we have different types of math workbooks to suit different chuldren’s needs.
Children do not have to be “forced” to play chess, they learn to enjoy it even without seriously playing it and still getting the benefits as if they had played it.
Check it out at Ho Math and Chess web site http://www.mathandchess.com.
I’ve met people with similar complaints as Matthews who are chronic complainers, always jumping on some soapbox and hollering about schools wasting taxpayers money. In their case they complained about taxpayers money going to things like art classes and music classes because these wouldn’t help students in the ‘real world’ with jobs. Their ideas are that school should equip you to become a productive taxpaying member of society and art and music at the grade school level won’t help you with that end goal. I’ve also heard similar complaints about school sport teams like football.
So it seems to me Matthews might be one of these type of people, someone who has a narrow view of what education entails and habitually complains when the school board goes beyond his narrow vision.
On the other hand just because he’s a chronic complainer (if he is) does not mean he’s wrong in this instance. I’d want to know more using taxpayer money to put people on a cruise ship among other things if I was in his district. It does seem a bit exorbitant.
–Daniel J. Andrews