Fifth-grader Holden Penhollow and first-grader Bryce Harris square off. Some things in life seem to work better with a cape: leaping tall buildings in a single bound, rescuing a kidnapped senorita from the evil Don Diego, and playing chess.
Sure, you haven’t seen that last one in the movies but that doesn’t faze the kids at Evergreen Elementary School in Redmond, who sometimes show up for early morning chess club dressed for super hero battle.
“I’ve even had kids show up wearing a special glove, like a professional athlete,” said Evergreen’s Chess for Success coach, teacher Thomas Wheeler. Fittingly, the club’s logo uses the school’s familiar eagle mascot in a more predatory pose: swooping down to capture a chess piece. Wheeler, who ended up coaching the club by default when another teacher had to drop out, didn’t know what to expect from introducing kids as young as six to chess. He wasn’t even a big chess player until this fall.
“Chess was not something to be involved in when I was in high school,” he said with a laugh. But he took it up when living in Mexico with a devoted chess family and kept it up after he returned home, thanks to a chess-playing brother who learned the game while in Spain.
More than 40 kids from grades 1st-5th come to the 8 a.m. chess club practice twice a week; about 30 percent are girls. ”I didn’t have to sell the program to students at all, they just showed up,” said Wheeler. “The hardest part wasn’t interesting them in chess, it was getting them to show up that early for practice.”
The idea of six-year-olds playing 11-year-olds in a game as complex as chess seemed difficult at best in the beginning, Wheeler said. To try it out he took a board home and taught his own first-grade daughter and third grade son to play.
“She’s already beaten him three times,” he said, “and today when I was getting ready for work they were playing a game before school.”
Chess for Success is a nonprofit that provides grants to elementary and middle schools in an effort to increase students’ success in school and life through chess. It targets schools with higher percentages of low-income students in the belief that chess is a “great equalizer.”
The organization provides chess sets for the club (and chess sets for students to take home), t-shirts, a paid coach, lesson plans and a library of books on chess for the school.
Redmond has four new clubs in its elementaries, one in each middle school and another at Terrebonne Community School. Program manager Jeremy Rubenstein, who serves as advisor to the Redmond High School chess club, sees the program as a great introduction to the benefits of chess for students who’d be unlikely to encounter it otherwise.
Numerous studies have shown that students who play chess see increases in academic test scores in various subject areas at dramatically higher rates than students who don’t play chess. Supporters of chess for children point to its chief benefit: development of critical thinking skills. Kids who learn chess learn to make reasoned judgments, taking everything affecting the situation at hand into consideration.
“Kids learn to sit still, they learn self-control and patience and how to evaluate their decisions,” said Wheeler. “It’s been great to see them in a different light than in the classroom.”
Club practices take two forms: a group lesson with a sample chess board on the wall and games between members.
At a recent practice the students are huddled around the enlarged practice board, taking turns making moves and discussing strategies with Wheeler. One student stands before the board for a long time, unsure what move to make. He’s joined by two other boys and they put their heads to whisper, forming a pint-sized war room consultation.
“We match the kids up by experience, not age,” said Wheeler. “The more experienced kids play less experienced ones; if you teach something it reinforces it so you’ll remember it forever.”
He was worried about the ability differences when the club began but said it has all worked itself out and even produced a couple of young “ringers” who’ve amazed Wheeler with their prowess and sportsmanship.
Emmett Nave and Wheeler’s daughter Anna jump right into a game, with a growing stack of captured pieces lined up in front of each player like chips at Vegas. Move follows move until Anna, a first-grader, is down to her king and one lone knight. The game continues for another 10 minutes, as Emmett, a third-grader, chases the king around the board.
Not all club members are so serious about their chess. One duo of second-grade girls take an inordinate amount of time setting up their board, setting each piece just so with the concentration of obsessive interior designers. Lots of chatter accompanies this process.
“We work on the concept of teamwork and try to get away from winning being the most important thing,” said Wheeler. Students learn to shake hands after a game, compliment each other’s play and how to handle it when things aren’t going your way.
Fourth-grader Sara Dingman began playing chess with her father as a preschooler but soon quit because “it was too hard.” Later she tried again with her mother but that wasn’t much fun either. Then when the club started up this year she tried one more time.
“It’s different now,” she said. “It’s really fun.”
Wheeler has been impressed by the self-discipline shown by the students in the club.
“This can’t be babysitting and the kids are coming motivated to play and serious about the game –or a serious as a first-grader can be. We’ve only lost a couple of kids who decided it just wasn’t their thing.”
According to Rubenstein, the Chess for Success programs in the five participating district elementary schools have about 170 kids participating. Fifty-five middle school students are enrolled in the program and a handful of high school students meet at lunch weekly to play in an informal club.
A practice tournament was held Dec. 12 for district Chess for Success students, a warm-up for the main event, a Feb. 6 regional tournament where students are matched by ability, not age. For the practice tournament effort was made to pair kids for subsequent matches by their successes, Rubenstein said. “If we saw multiple losses on a kid's card we tried to match them up with another kids with multiple losses. Our goal was for every kid to have at least one win so they could go home feeling good about the experience.”
Prior to the practice tournament Wheeler said “We’ve been practicing playing for 10 minutes in total silence to get them ready for tournaments. Concentrating that hard is hard but it’s a good skill to learn for the classroom. We’re moving towards a goal.”
He needn’t have worried. Two hours into the tournament nearly a quarter of the original 100 players are still at the table, even Emmett and Anna, whose feet don’t touch the floor and who can’t stop yawning, but who seem determined to battle to the end.
-- story and photo by Leslie Pugmire Hole
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