Teaching chess (in school)

I taught my kids to play chess when they were young as well.  We don't play a lot, but the chess board is always out so we play enough to keep the chess hat on.  I'm not sure about doing away with any part of a math curriculum though...... understanding numbers will always be useful from my way of thinking.

If they are teaching chess then they should be fair and work in the teaching if checkers into the cirriculum!!!

They probably think you could teach your kids how to play checkers on your own.  I bet if you let them know it's over your head they would help out.  

I was actually going for a evolution vs creationism funny  that failed pretty bad. Sorry, I will try harder next time! 

I'm curious if chess really teaches all of that...  If anything, it may teach being a good competitor.  Good loser and good gracious winner.

In my quest to get good (which didn't amount to much) I got to about a comfortable 1400-1500 rating.  I don't remember learning all that stuff.  For me, it was recognizing patterns and taking space and using pieces in harmony.  Also exchanging pieces of equal value or at times, giving up pieces for space and position.

Maybe it's something I'm missing or just need more time at the board), but I can't see ahead moves like people say you should.  Maybe one or two, but that's about it.  I have certain future goals.  Control a certain square or get a particular piece to a particular hole in my op0ositions's defense.  Their moves my impact what I want to do so I have to adjust.  Anyway, maybe that's why I never got that good at it even with reading and studying problems and classic games and teaching software programs.

Like anything I think instruction would help.

PS,   When I read that players like Josh Waitzkin had ratings of 1500-1600 when they were 10?  It blows my mind.

This is, hands down, the most important thing kids can learn from chess.  Being able to "take the long view" and understand the COSTS and benefits of acting NOW (as opposed to just the benefits) is a huge skill that so many people are lacking.

Sounds like Kido could totally dominate that dojo.

I actually am a chess teacher!   I teach elementary kids  grades 1-6  at several schools.

Me: "BOYS!  the pieces do not actually fight with each other!!!  OK?" 

       "Chess is a quiet sport" 

Kids:  "It's a sport?  See I told YOU!!"    How come there isn't a ball?"

 I would never advocate chess over a math program.

Chess concepts learned at an early age, are life long lessons on how to think strategically.      I love it when I see the change in a kids face when "they get it"  and all of a sudden can see all their moves on the board and what the ramifications are down the line.       It's so awesome.

I'm pulling from my memory about Josh Waitzkin.  It may have been higher.  As for my chess rating, I'm recalling what FICS gives me after playing online live games.

It's a pretty simple system (where they got their numbers, I'm not sure).

It's sort of a handicap, in a way (like golf).  If a 1400 plays a 1400, the winner will get something like 20 points and move up to 1420.  Loser loses 20 and moves to 1380 and a draw is no change.

If a 1500 plays a 1300.  If the 1300 wins, they may get 35 points.  A draw they may get 10 points and a lost may only be -5.  So the points won or lost depends on the skill level of your opponent.  theoretically,  a 1400 could play a lot of lower levels and only win a point at a time, but their rating will increase.  (there is a limit to that though.  A master playing me can't get a point at all).  If they play another 1400, they could get killed.

Obviously, the more you play other ranked players, your rating will be more accurate to the masses of who play.  In my head, 1800 is pretty darned good and 2000 is master status.  1600 would even be a lot of work to get to unless something "clicks" for me.  I seem to hover around 1400.

There are other systems but they are rarely used.  I'm not sure what the kids use or if it's different.

From wiki:

Elo rating system

FIDE classifies tournaments into categories according to the average rating of the players. Each category is 25 rating points wide. Category 1 is for an average rating of 2251 to 2275, category 2 is 2276 to 2300, etc. For women's tournaments, the categories are 200 rating points lower, so a Category 1 is an average rating of 2051 to 2075, etc.^[1]

The USCF uses a modification of the Elo system, where the K factor varies and there are bonus points for superior performance in a tournament. The USCF classifies players according to their rating (Just & Burg 2003:259–73). USCF ratings are generally 50 to 100 points higher than the FIDE equivalents (Just & Burg 2003:112).

I'm not sure why they would have classes I and J.  Seems if you know the rules of chess and SOME idea of strategy, you can be G or H.