Checkmate: Low-income school is king of chess
Contributed by: Kathryn Richert
YourHub.com on 12/10/2008
In quiet classrooms at Flores Magón Academy on the Westminster-Denver border, students are removing stereotypes one checkmate at a time.
Within the walls of classrooms for grades kindergarten through third, students on any given day are lined up in two rows with plastic chess boards between each pair of students, 93 percent of whom are on the free or reduced lunch program, an indicator of low-income levels.
On a recent afternoon at the charter school, a class of second-graders are still, except when their tiny fingers move a piece on the board.
They are silent, except for the murmur of “check,” “checkmate,” “check,” “checkmate” and the occasional question for chess coach Mr. M, also known as Dominic Martinez.
Their foreheads wrinkle in concentration, focusing on their next move as their eyes bounce from square to square.
They play at least three times a week in the classroom, the only students in the state that play chess during school hours, or if they’re on the chess team they practice an additional two times a week before school.
It’s a lot of chess practice that’s paid off in statewide chess tournaments and more importantly in the classroom, said Marcos Martínez, the school’s founder and head.
The school placed second in the Denver Scholastic Chess Series tournament Dec. 6 and placed second in two tournaments earlier this calendar year.
The school, which is approximately 90 percent Hispanic, competed against schools mostly classified as white, affluent and suburban, Martínez said.
The students have not only made quick placement jumps in the tournament circuit, but also in the classroom.
On the first day the school opened in August 2007, the students were given the Standford Achievement Test, a standardized measurement used to rank students nationwide.
Less than 3 percent of the students passed, said Antonio Vigil, director of instruction at the school. At the end of the school year, about 64 percent of the students were above the national average, an accomplishment Vigil attributes to long school hours, a rigorous academic program that doesn’t include naptime or playtime and possibly a super-sized amount of chess.
In addition to the cognitive skills chess teaches, school officials hope the game’s lessons will resonate with the students long after they leave Flores Magón Academy.
“The chess board becomes a living metaphor for the choices they make in preparation for college,” Vigil said. “Our opponents are apathy, injustice and a lack of high expectations.”
Here is the full article.
Does anyone know of a standard curriculum for chess classes at this grade level? Rather than reinventing the wheel at each school, has someone put together a model program that could be emulated? Perhaps someone has published on this.
I teach music in an elementary school and would be interested in any offered feedback.