Schools include extracurricular activities to add benefit and incentive to students. Sports keep kids active and healthy, while clubs or cultural activities broaden their perspective on the world and keep their interest if the academic subjects don’t. A trend in education in the last few decades has been to hold chess classes as a fun way to get kids to think.
Chess had been in the schools of several foreign countries for almost a century, but in the United States the trend really started about 35 years ago in New York City. It was a small start at the beginning, yet now chess classes are extremely common in all five boroughs. They have even inspired some movies such as Knights of the South Bronx with Ted Danson, and the recent documentary Brooklyn Castle.
Most countries include some kind of school chess program – there are 187 member countries in the World Chess Federation. The case of Sweden has been very dramatic in the last five years. Having very little chess in schools, their program suddenly blossomed six years ago with 15,000 kids now taking part in Stockholm alone. The trend has pervaded the United States fairly well, but most often in urban, progressive areas where administrators look for new ideas.
The main reason for the growth of school chess programs has been the proliferation of studies which show that kids do better academically if they participate in chess classes. A recent German study compared children taking five math classes a week versus taking four math classes and one chess class. The kids taking the chess class had higher math scores! The consensus is that if kids are doing something they find to be fun, they are motivated to try harder. The aim is to have a game-like environment in which kids interact, have fun, and start thinking in such a way that they see the consequences of their decisions.
San Francisco was rather late to join the trend of school chess. Long-time Mechanics’ Institute trustee Neil Falconer had begun a Bay Area program back in the mid-nineties in conjunction with the American Chess Foundation, but that initiative died down after some years. Things started up again strongly in 2012 with the Mechanics’ Institute Youth Outreach Chess Program. This teaches chess in twenty San Francisco schools (mostly Title 1), and assists other schools with their classes.
Each year in March, Mechanics’ Institute hosts the San Francisco Scholastic Chess Championship, which is open to all San Francisco-area students, allowing aspiring young chess masters to compete for prizes, trophies, and the respect of their peers. The Mechanics’ Institute has been recognized by Mayor Lee for its work with kids’ chess. To learn more about the Youth Outreach Chess Program, visit http://www.milibrary.org/give/special/chessyouth.
