Chess in Education

Join the Global Conversation!

Every last Wednesday of the month the ECU Education Commission holds a Discussion Group meeting for chess educators to share their experiences and discuss their ideas and knowledge on different topics related to Chess in Education.

Discussion Group Meetings allow participants to learn from each other and gain new insights through different perspectives.

This month:

John Foley was presenting at the Chess, Education and Health Conference in Menorca in March this year and shares his talk in the next Discussion Group Meeting.

"We must not let the competitive model dominate chess in schools. This leads to children dropping out early from an important area of learning. The problem is that chess is led by chess players who are obsessed by chess, not by education. Most lack any insight into game pedagogy and only focus on those children with chess potential as if school is a junior pipeline. Schools should switch from chess to strategy games which regular teachers can learn easily. A variety of simple games can be played on a chess board such as Fox and Hounds, Draughts and Halma as well as chess minigames. These games have real educational value regarding thinking skills. We can give children a choice of the games they play and encourage learning new games. We should avoid harsh competition. Soft competition means stripping away the individual celebrations of victory in favour of recognising children for participation, effort and good behaviour. Strategy games should be linked to the school curriculum. There are obvious overlaps in areas such as mathematics, geometry and logic. However, all the school subjects can have a game element. To implement strategy games, schools need only supplement the chess equipment with other game pieces including draughts, coloured counters, numbered counters, halma pieces etc."

Register and join the Global Discussion!

Wednesday, 24th April 2024

18:00 - 19:30 Central European Time

(Don`t forget to check your time zone!)

The event is managed by ChessPlus.