Teaching Life Skills Through Chess

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Teaching Life Skills Through Chess
Fernando Moreno morenofe_at_aol.com

• CISCCON Conference
• Aug,31st 2007
• University of Aberdeen
• Scotland

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Purpose This presentation describes the use of
chess in addressing the social/emotional needs of
students
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• This approach has been implemented in different
  public schools 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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Foundation
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Chess is ideal for teaching 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 become
concrete manipulatives 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 metaphors 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 succeed in
  todays society, it is also our social emotional
  competence. The following slides compare some of
  the skills developed through 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, responding 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 students play 2
  against 2 on only one board. They need to
  understand, cope and learn from each other.

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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 problems every time
  you move a piece. You must control your impulses
  and set short and long term goals to gain an
  advantage and win the game.

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How does the model work? Rationale
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The Chess board represents 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 time
that language development is occurring, the
discussion linking chess positions with life
situations promotes the development of
social/emotional skills.
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Classroom/guidance presentation

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

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Individual/group counseling

• A session starts with a 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 It is Whites turn
to move. The Black pawn 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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Stealing It is Blacks turn to
move. The white player just made a bad Move
capturing the kings pawn with the knight . The
white queen appears to be in danger.. What would
you do?

• Capture the white queen with the bishop
• b. Capture the white knight with the knight

Its very attractive to capture the queen. But
if the bishop captures the queen, it is a big
mistake. The white bishop will capture the pawn
checking the king and in the next move the
other knight will move and checkmate the black
King.
Advice for Life Think more than one move ahead.
Think of what could happen as a result of your
actions. Look at the long term consequences of
your actions.
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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 make. Mr. Redding, ESOL
  teacher, Oak View ES
• I saw the students grow as they learned more and
  I 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-threatening.Mrs. Carlson, ESOL
  teacher, Blair HS

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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.