Artwork by Mike Magnan
Check it out! Kids are game for chess
By DEIDRE WILLIAMS
News Staff Reporter2/18/2007
Alexis Chinn, 14, has been playing chess for about a year. To her, it’s more than just a game.
“It makes you focus, and it helps you solve problems because you have to think,” said Alexis, during a break in the action Saturday of the Ellen Kennedy Day Open Chess Tournament, held in Main Place Mall.
Alexis was one of about 50 people – children and adults – from all over Western New York who participated in the U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) tournament. In the next couple of years, plans are to make the game available to all students in the Buffalo City School District, as part of the regular curriculum and after-school programs. USCF will train teachers to use chess as a tool to teach math, critical thinking skills and problem solving, and to build character.
It will be a first in the country, organizers said.
“This would be record-making,” said Jerry Nash, a USCF director at Saturday’s tournament. He pointed out that, although chess is already part of the curriculum in other school districts across the country, in those programs, chess teachers are provided by the USCF’s Chess in Education Committee.
Here is the full article.
This is interesting. Does the USCF have a curriculum?