Exploring Logic: a Middle School Chess Class

The benefits of direct chess instruction in the K-12 classroom have been documented for years, and anyone curious enough to want to sift through the details can Google the terms "chess education research" and get rewarded with over 270,000 hits faster than you can say "Robert Ferguson."

However, when my non-chess playing middle school principal suggested that I could teach a formal chess class to my sixth graders, it was time to put a proposal together in simple terms to justify the benefits of the proposed class. It certainly wouldn't hurt if I could tie in as many State of Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations along the way.

Here is what I submitted:

Across the curriculum, chess utilizes and strengthens higher level thinking skills including decoding, pattern recognition, comprehending, and analyzing. It also develops the ability to concentrate for extended periods of time, demonstrates that actions have immediate consequences, and teaches children to take responsibility for their decisions.

During game play, students develop socializing skills, sportsmanship, and etiquette.

The benefits of learning and playing chess are available to every student regardless of gender, socio-economic background, or learning style. It engages both hemispheres of the brain as it combines left-directed thinking skills involving analysis and logical decision making with right-directed skills such as spatial reasoning and holistic problem solving. Good players must combine logical thinking with imagination and creativity.

In specific content areas, research supports that chess enhances reading performance, probably due to its reliance on decoding, pattern recognition, and increased ability to concentrate.

In science, chess develops scientific thinking. Just playing the game requires students to generate several candidate moves, evaluate and predict their possible outcomes, and interpret the results. A player decides on a hypothesis, makes her move, and tests it.

In math, chess develops a multitude of skills such as spatial reasoning, coordinate geometry, comparing and ordering values and calculation.

Wordy?

You bet. But it got the job done.

The ten-week class meets for one hour every morning and repeats itself with new students every quarter. This is the first year of the class, so I'm still feeling my way along, but so far the reaction from students and parents has been very favorable.