At Central Catholic Elementary, the principal decided to incorporate chess as part of the school curriculum. Every child from K-5 learns chess in school! As a result of this, the grades of these children went UP!
Today, I visit Central Catholic to teach 4 groups of kids. Joining me is GM Gilberto Hernandez, head coach of University of Texas in Brownsville, Russell Hardwood, director of chess at UTB and the UTB chess team.
Chess has a lot of support in Texas!
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
What kind of lessons do you give to children of their age?
I gave my first lesson today to 19 boys(14) and girls(5) of ten years old.I had a lot of things planned to say but finally my pupils were asking me all the time their own chess problems and i was solving questions and moving quickly in my wall-board for an hour.Probably the class ok.I am a bit surprised with all this.Can someone share experience and explain me how to teach so young people?I am not a master,but I am rated 2119 international.All comments are welcomed.Thanks.
“Chess has a lot of support in Texas!”
This statement needs correction. I don’t know about the rest of Texas, but Houston doesn’t have any independent location where children can meet and play. There are a few schools with clubs, but most kids really don’t have access to anything like a club. My daughter’s middle school had a great chess team, they even were national champions once, but apparently couldn’t come up with the money to keep it up, so the team folded. Now there is a club with about 15 boys and my daughter as the only girl. It’s better than nothing, but it is our dream that a Polgar Center will open in Houston too.