Using chess in a Counseling/Mentoring Approach for Students

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Using chess in a Counseling/Mentoring Approach
for Students
Fernando Moreno morenofe_at_aol.com

• Chess in Education Workshop
• Aug, 7-8, 2006
• Oakbrook, IL

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CHESS

• Chess
• Helps
• Every
• Student
• Succeed

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Purpose This workshop describes using chess to
address the social emotional needs of students in
a counseling/mentoring relationship
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• This approach has being implemented in different
  public school in
• Montgomery County, Maryland
• Currently, at Broad Acres ES

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A variety of chess positions correlated to social
situations will be presented.
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Rationale
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Chess is ideal for teaching us that although we
may come from various backgrounds, socio-economic
statuses and even languages our minds can work
in similar ways when trying to reach a goal.
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Students are not necessarily always ready to talk
about their difficulties, and share feelings.
But, when they are playing chess, rapport is
established in a non-threatening way.
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Once involved in the game, the pieces
becomeconcrete manipulative with which students
can discuss their problems and find alternatives
and/or solutions.
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Life Skills Trough Chess

• Chess pieces are used as a metaphor for life
  situations.

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Social Skills

• Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotional
  Intelligence (1995) noted that it is not only our
  pure intelligence that helps us to achieve in
  todays society, it is also our social emotional
  competence. The following slides compare some of
  the skills developed in chess with some of those
  cited as key for effective social competence
  programs by the W.T. Grant Consortium.

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Emotional Skills

• Managing skills You need to manage feelings in
  every position of the game.
• Controlling impulses If you do not control your
  impulses you might move too fast and may be not
  see that your chess position is in danger
• Delaying gratification Sometimes in a chess
  position it is better not to capture a piece and
  wait for a better opportunity.
• Identifying expressing feelings Playing Chess
  offers an opportunity to discuss feelings that
  arise in different situations. For example I
  made a mistake
• Reducing Stress To control and reduce stress
  when you play is very important in chess and in
  life.

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Behavioral Skills

• Non verbal communication In Chess, you learn to
  see non-verbal clues from your opponents
• Verbal making requests, respond effectively to
  criticism, resisting negative influences,
  listening to others, helping others,
  participating in positive peer groups. When you
  are conducting a chess class, you point out
  mistakes players make. Sometimes they play 2
  against 2 on only one board. They need to
  understand, cope and learn negative decisions and
  influences from each other.

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• Understanding behavioral norms In Chess you
  must always follow basic rules and etiquette
  rules.
• A positive attitude toward life In chess you
  must try to find the best choice in each
  position. Evaluate your position and try to gain
  insight to improve it.
• Self- Awareness developing realistic
  expectations about yourself. In Chess, you see
  that other players can be better than you and
  that you can be better than others.

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Using steps for problem solving

• Decision making, controlling impulses, setting
  goals, identifying alternatives and
  consequences When you play chess you have to
  make decisions and resolve situations every time
  you move a piece. You must control your impulses.
  You must set short and long term goals to achieve
  a better position and win the game.

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How does the model work? Rationale
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The Chess board represent our lives. The chess
pieces become us. Each piece may represent the
skills we have. The way we move them will lead
us to success or failure.
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The chess discussion produces meaningful
interactions among students. At the same that
language development is occurring the discussion
linking chess positions with life situations
promoted the development of social/emotional
skills.
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Classroom/guidance presentation

• A chess/guidance lesson is conducted following
  Mr. Morenos life chess curriculum. A special
  social development objective is linked with a
  chess concept.

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Individual/group counseling

• A session starts with a specific position that
  reflects a specific student problem. Other times,
  students play and the game is stopped by the
  counselor. Students will gain insight about a
  chess position as it relates to their particular
  problem.

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Chess puzzle activities
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Conflict resolution/fight Its Whites turn to
move. The Black pawns just moved
forward. What would you do?
If the white pawn moves forward, nobody can stop
it. It will be promoted to a Queen and later the
black King will be checkmated. But, if white
captures black , the other black pawn will
capture white and nobody will win. It will be a
draw.
Advice for Life When somebody challenges you,
bothers you or steps into your space, your first
reaction may be to bother or fight them back. Is
it the best decision? It might be best to think
before you move, focus on your goal and move away
from trouble. Fighting does not solve
anything, nobody wins
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Dialogue Journals

• Using Journal writing is a great way to interact
  with your mentee and develop a personal contact.
• Each mentor should decide the frequency of the
  entries in the journal. For some of the students
  ones a week could be enough, other will like to
  do more or less entries. For some students I
  suggest to use pictures, drawings, word games
  along with conventional writingetc

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Peer Mentor/Chess Club

• HS ESOL students are selected to be Peer Mentor
  Volunteers. They teach and conduct activities in
  Elementary Chess Club.They earn community
  services hours required for graduation.
• This activity will provide an opportunity to
  develop language skills, social and chess skills.

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Students Comments

• I like to play chess because I have to think and
  it is not boring
• I learned that you must think before you move
• I want to be successful and it is fun
• This is not just a game, it is a learning and
  thinking game
• I like to learn new things
• Its all about making the right move

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Teachers Comments

• In general, they have learned a lot about
  choices and consequences. Chess is a complicated
  game that students can learn, and when they do,
  they feel very good about themselves students
  learn to apply choices they learn in chess to
  real-life choices they most make. Mr. Redding,
  ESOL teacher, Oak View ES
• I saw the students grow as they learned more and
  listened to them discuss a variety of issues
  during the sessions. Sometimes, Mr. Moreno was
  able to raise issues that I had concerns about.
  He related behavior to chess and then branched
  out from there. This gave students something
  concrete to begin with, and also made the
  discussion non-threatenMrs. Carlson, ESOL
  teacher, Blair HS

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• Recently, I had the opportunity to observe
  Fernando Moreno "in action" during a lunch time
  session of Chess for Success for 5th grade
  Hispanic boys at Forest Knolls. It was exciting
  to see how Fernando uses the game of chess to
  build essential skills such as conflict
  resolution, decision making, and goal setting.
  Through his energy and enthusiasm, he seamlessly
  moves between specific instruction in chess
  concepts and life skills. The students,
  regardless of their proficiency in English, are
  engaged in the lessons and eager to respond to
  his instructions.

Mrs. Starke, Principal at Forest Knolls ES
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EVALUATION OF THE PROGRAM

• Almost all teachers agreed that through the game
  of Chess, students have increased their social
  skills.
• Almost all students liked the program and
  recommended it.

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