Teachers nationwide are flummoxed by students’ newfound chess obsession

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/04/15/school-chess-class-clubs/

by daniel-thompson • 3 years ago

46 40 3 years ago

washingtonpost.com

gjvc• 3 years ago

depressing to read the strap-line calling it a "fad", somewhat dismissively.

beached_whale• 3 years ago

Compared to eating, I guess a game played for 1400 years is a fad ;)

I've never really put a lot of time into chess, but maybe learning to play better with my kids might be fun, and a "fad" /s is a good enough reason.

costanzaDynasty• 3 years ago

I had a year in school where everyone became obsessed with chess. The teacher allowed kids to play chess who finished their work before everyone else was done. Haven’t thought about that in years.

cityofdelusion• 3 years ago

Same, had a chess fad around 2007 in my high school. It faded by the end of the school year. Funny how things repeat.

moi2388• 3 years ago

2007 in my school as well.

massysett• 3 years ago

For every silver lining there’s a cloud.

ralfd• 3 years ago

Related: GothamChess 2 month ago on why there is a chess boom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt8Y0vvDRYI

more_corn• 3 years ago

We played chess in high school. I learned a lot about life, other people, the consequences of one’s actions. Attempting to ascertain the intentions of another based on their actions… I remember the lessons I learned playing chess in the coffee shop more vividly than I remember any of the lessons I learned in class.

chickenimprint• 3 years ago

Can you put those lessons into words? I'm having a hard time imagining what lesson applicable to real life one could glean from playing chess.

danso• 3 years ago

Non-paywall link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/04/15/school-c...

JSeymourATL• 3 years ago

Tangential…

   The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence

By Josh Waitzkin > https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/857333.The_Art_of_Learni...

Overtonwindow3• 3 years ago

He gave up chess because he couldn't make grandmaster. The original book written with his father, "searching for Bobby Fischer" is much better I think. It's not the same as the movie, which is mostly imaginary.

ryzvonusef3• 3 years ago

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/12n0yxh/article_teac...

EDIT I'm leaving the link for any posthumous curiosity, but I'll be removing the quote since fellow commenters here have made me realize they might not be entirely truthful in their assertion.

singularity2001• 3 years ago

I was hoping for the influence of streamers like brodin

Zetice• 3 years ago

Anonymous commenters on the internet aren’t the trove of honest reporting you seem to think…

ryzvonusef3• 3 years ago

Your comment piqued my curiosity, so I decided to see if their comment history supported their claim...yeah, a two year old account with a high karma count but no comments older than 12 days ago....i think I'll edit my comment, they might not be honest

flangola7• 3 years ago

Well that's disappointing :/

renewiltord• 3 years ago

As a high school teacher with years of experience, the other thing I've heard a lot is that they picked up chess because of 4chan posts that Trump was playing chess while Hillary was playing checkers.

That's bullshit but if I'd posted it on Reddit, someone on HN could've quoted it.

Overtonwindow3• 3 years ago

..flummoxed?? Strange choice of a word. I was delighted when my son took up, chess when he was seven years old. I think chess should be something that is taught in school, alongside music, art, and history.

jononomo5• 3 years ago

Art, music, and history have some relevance to life, but chess does not.

Overtonwindow3• 3 years ago

Depends on who you ask. For people who play chess, it is art and it has great relevance. The fact you're commenting on this shows it.

throwaway81523• 3 years ago

Someone on reddit says this is due to Andrew Tate's influence. I barely know who Andrew Tate is, but other commenters there seem to believe it too.

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/12n0yxh/article_teac... :

GoodNormals 35 points 4 hours ago
I’m a high school dean and former teacher and chess coach.
While new students playing chess is great, and I see it all the time at school, unfortunately it’s the result of Andrew Tate’s influence. I’ve asked many students lately while they started playing, and Tate is brought up almost every time.

badrabbit• 3 years ago

I like chess but naturally I learn games by trial and error until I develop an intuition for it. You just can't play chess like that, you have to study strategies and moves. I play against computer sometimes but I have 0 time I can invest into learning the moves. I feel like for those of us not in the top 1% of intellectually capable people what makes or breaks your chess ability is the amount of time you put in studying strategies and effort you put into practicing but the former more than the latter.

jononomo5• 3 years ago

Chess is an absolute waste of time. There is just nothing there of any interest whatsoever.

lucaspfeifer2• 3 years ago

No, it improves many skills, including logic, memory, pattern recognition, visualization, calculation, decision-making, abstraction, time management, risk management, etc.

blackpill0w2• 3 years ago

You just can't play chess like that

You most definitely can, it'd just take more time since you have to rediscover a lot of things that could be given to you as advice.

I play against computer

Don't play against the computer if you're a beginner and want to improve, bots play in an exotic way and that won't help you.

I have 0 time I can invest into learning the moves

I don't spend time learning opening theory either (I am just 1800 on Lichess), I just play and use the engine to see where I screwed up and what was the better move (I advise you to use Lichess (https://lichess.org/) over chess.com because open source + don't have to pay for engine analysis and puzzles). Talking about puzzles, play a lot of them, they'll train you to spot tactics. Finally, don't forget to have fun :)

jononomo5• 3 years ago

I think chess is an absolute waste of time. It is like spending your time doing long division for no reason. You learn nothing at all that is applicable to any domain outside of chess. You could spend your time reading a good book instead.

yibers• 3 years ago

What if I read a good book about chess?

sterlind• 3 years ago

what if you happen to find chess fun? is fun a waste of time?

r-zip• 3 years ago

Would you say the same about golf?

prepend• 3 years ago

What’s wrong with doing long division for fun?

I gave up trying to police people’s choice for fun. Let people watch baseball or ferret racing or whatnot.

Comically, I remember as a kid people telling me that reading a book was a waste of time. And asking why I would ever read something not assigned.

Someone will always think my thing is dumb. Someone is always smarter. Someone is always dumber.

So what. If it’s not harming themself or others, then I let it be.

bsder• 3 years ago

It's a fad. But it's also almost completely neutral to social media filters so can get pushed without backlash.

Something will be everywhere and then it will disappear. The chess folks should make use of the popularity while it lasts.

mgarfias• 3 years ago

My 9yro and 18yro regularly play. Including with each other on some online deal. Kinda cool how the internet lets them play together even when the 18yro is off at uni on the other side of the country.

naveen99• 3 years ago

Chess elo seems more useful to me than the sat or other iq tests. also more fun and scalable to the global population.

My favorite youtube channels for chess are chessbrah and gotham.

The rating climbs are the most fun.

Teachers nationwide are flummoxed by students’ newfound chess obsession

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