Chess ‘grandfather‘ honored for decade of tutoring
King for a knight
By Laura Crimaldi
Friday, October 31, 2008
A “foster grandfather” will be honored tonight for volunteering to teach Quincy kids chess – using his own handmade chess pieces.
Four days a week for 10 years, Yasha Khibkin, 69, has spent several hours tutoring math and teaching chess, checkers and Chinese checkers to 52 children in kindergarten through fifth grade. The boards and pawns, bishops, knights and other pieces he uses are handmade by Khibkin, who prefers his creations of paper mache, paint and lacquer over plastic, store-bought pieces.
“He is a huge asset to us,” said Kyle Randall, the after-school program director.
Officials at Action for Boston Community Development agree. They are honoring Khibkin at the anti-poverty agency’s annual Community Awards Dinner.
“He’s a very nice guy. He’s charming,” said ABCD President and CEO Robert M. Coard.
The foster grandparent program was established 35 years ago, and Coard said there are 145 volunteers at ABCD sites, including 20 men.
Male volunteers are especially appreciated, Coard said, because “a lot of kids in Boston and the inner city live in female-headed households.”
Khibkin, who emigrated from Uzbeskistan with his wife, Raisa Rivkiua, and two children in 1997, said being a foster grandparent helped him learn English. He soon began to draw on his experience as a mathematics and physics teacher to help young children learn their multiplication tables and count without using their fingers. Chess came naturally, too.
“Every move in chess is very thinkable,” said Khibkin. “It is logical, like mathematics.”
Khibkin became a citizen in 2002.
“The United States helped change me, changed my life. Therefore I must help my country,” Khibkin said. “We’re free here, you understand. No one understands like those who came from the Soviet Union.”
Source: http://news.bostonherald.com/
Chess is so important for kids.