THE POWER OF A GAME
Justin Brown from Chicago was eight years old when his father brought home a chess set1 he had bought at a local store. Now, five years later, Justin is captain of a team of 13- to 15-year-old chess players at the city's Oak Park Public School. His team has recently won a competition where they played against teams from seventeen other schools.(lines 1–4)
This was Justin's first major chess competition, and the third that Oak Park has won. Melissa Jones, head of the chess program, believes that much of the team's success is due to the policies the school has introduced. All students, she explains, are required to take weekly chess classes as part of the regular school day, and beginners are given the opportunity to practice with more advanced2 players. Moreover, the whole school is encouraged to show its support for the team, especially in the weeks before an important competition. Jones points to the posters hung along the corridors3, with photographs of all the team members. "Our youngest students chose to make these," she says. "Other students wrote some really nice songs."(lines 5–12)
Oak Park is just one of many schools in the USA that now teach chess as a school subject. Another is Bennington High in Dallas, whose head, Paul Turner, claims that he is seeing the effects in many areas of students' lives. "During chess lessons kids really learn to concentrate, and this contributes4 to their success in other school subjects," he says. "In addition, winning a game does a lot for a child's self confidence, because chess is such a difficult game to master5."(lines 13–18)
Turner mentions other advantages of having a chess program in school. "It's something every school can offer to kids — unlike sports or music, it doesn't require any expensive equipment or instruments6." He also speaks of the positive feedback7 from parents. "We have a boy here who used to become extremely angry whenever he lost any game. But he's been playing chess for a year, and last week his mother told me that now he stays calm8 even when he's very disappointed. She's just sorry he hadn't learned the game when he was much younger." It seems, then, that playing chess may indeed help children in many different aspects9 of their lives.(lines 19–25)