Philadelphia, for instance, has chess clubs, run mostly by community volunteers, in more than 100 schools. The district has also started a pilot program to offer formal chess instruction to 4,000 students. "Chess seems to improve problem-solving skills,'' Philadelphia superintendent Paul Vallas told the New York Times recently. "'It improves discipline. It improves memory. It certainly seems to improve mathematical skills.''
I had the opportunity to watch a school chess club in action, and even play against some of the kids, when I was in Philadelphia several months ago working on a profile of Vallas. Theo Mont, a tall, self-possessed man who works for an energy company, was running an after school chess club for about a dozen kids at McMichael. The K-8 school in West Philadelphia is bounded to the north by train tracks, to the south by an 18-story housing tower and surrounded by condemned row houses and people selling junk out on the street.
Mont treats the kids with respect and expects them to respect each other. When one victorious kid taunted his opponent by singing "We Are the Champions," for example, Mont cut him off. The value of chess, he said, is that it teaches the kids to realize that their actions have consequences.
Teachers who visit the club are always surprised at how children who are rowdy in their classrooms will sit still playing this cerebral game. "Chess is just a thinking game," said Rick Crain, an 8th grade reading teacher. "When you teach a thinking game, it's going to carry over."
I'd like to see some data on that. Do students who play chess show measurable improvement in academic areas? Or are they just getting the pleasure of adult attention and a safe place to play?
Either way, there's no questioning the wisdom Mont offered to a 5th grader named Justin Roebuck: "If you don't like losing, you're going to have to learn how to win."
