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Sure, chess would be valuable. But as others have pointed out upthread, what class are you going to drop in order to teach it?
Or, if not drop an entire class, what class do you plan chess instruction to occur in and what happens to other units that class is already responsible for if you need to block off instructional time to teach chess (if you want it taught by the math teacher, for example?)
Why drop anything? Schools already have electives in any number of subjects. Heck our middle school forces kids to pick between band, chorus, and study hall. Why not add chess in as an option instead of band or chorus? Not everyone is musically talented or wants to perform in front of an audience, yet they are required to do it anyway. And we're somehow ok with grading musical ability. Why is chess so different?
Quote:
Originally Posted by JONOV
“Chess trains logical thinking. It teaches how to make decisions, trains memory, strengthens will power, motivates children to win, and teaches them how to deal with defeat. It’s the only school subject that can do all of this.”
I could make the same argument about football.
I don't see the huge benefits of teaching chess. Nothing wrong with it, but "meh."
I think that people see a correlation where bright people are good at chess and think that teaching it will lead them to being bright and successful. But if you go to plenty of urban cities you'll see talented chess players that don't have their life in order at all.
We already do that. Even without considering all the support the actual football teams get, there's a lot of it in PE and other classes as well. Even your last statement on people being good at football can lead to huge success. And yep, a lot of those wealthy football players who get treated like gods don't have their life in order either.
Now that the World Championship match is being played I thought I would start a chess thread. In my high school they discouraged chess. It eve got banned after I graduated.
I'd rather see a entry level finance class.
Chess is great but compared to video games it won't last 10 seconds in most high school kid's radar
The teachers and Admin at my school were morons. They though chess kept students from studying. It would make a good film - Give Me Chess or Give Me Death!
The time devoted to learning Chess is better spent learning how to spell.
Chess is great but compared to video games it won't last 10 seconds in most high school kid's radar
One of my grandkids went to a private Christian school where they incorporated some very basic finance in their math class. The kids ran a store, they had to learn how to price 'products' at a point where they would earn a profit, i.e. a pencil cost them 5 cents so they had to sell it for more than that, and they learned how to make change. It was really cool, I'm not sure why they don't offer some version of that in all elementary schools.
One of my grandkids went to a private Christian school where they incorporated some very basic finance in their math class. The kids ran a store, they had to learn how to price 'products' at a point where they would earn a profit, i.e. a pencil cost them 5 cents so they had to sell it for more than that, and they learned how to make change. It was really cool, I'm not sure why they don't offer some version of that in all elementary schools.
Yep,
Money management would be a better topic, as I know plenty of recent grads who are clueless on the subject; and literally paying for this lack of training.
You have to study to play well. It's a discipline. There are tons of books on opening theory, middle game theory and endgame theory. You have to know things like the Philidor position vs the Lucena position.
I like chess against a computer as it aids digestion. But my technique is to make the game as-simple-as-possible as-quick-as-possible and so I trade game-pieces as-quick-as-possible. First I trade bishops, then possibly trade queens, and then trade knights. I tend to hold on to the rooks or trade them last. The game sometimes ties but I never get beat. Reversing moves is allowed !
But an upgrade to Win10 from Win7 loses the chess game. So what remains is Free Cell. I play expert, reverse moves, and never lose.
But there are some techniques of education that don't allow teaching of anything that doesn't have an explicit answer. Also, any type of competition would be avoided. And any type of deep multi-level puzzle would be avoided. I think it's an overprotected environment.
Somewhat related would be issues of new new-maths. New new-math seeks understandings of concepts and then has featured graphics, or even lab assignments, to aid in the understanding of the concepts. That situation might sound okay but it is a one-sided view. For instance, word problems can be approached with a technique of determining the number of of unknowns. If there is one unknown then that's a problem that can be algebraically stated with one equation. Or if there are two unknowns then that's a problem that can be algebraically stated with two equations. And so on. There's no cartoon but just a process of algebraically stating the problem and that's very significant math that's not really very difficult.
Another point is that things occur in nature without graphical representations. For example, "geometric progression" is a geometry while "exponential growth" is not a geometry. Exponential growth is an occurrence and there might not be enough time to draw a picture before something goes boom.
Last edited by T Block; 12-03-2021 at 03:54 PM..
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