ORTONVILLE
School uses chess to teach math, thinking
November 18, 2007
BY LORI HIGGINS
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
Meghan Sydow pumped her hand in the air several times, softly muttering “yes, yes, yes,” as teacher Jamie Wagner called out a number that would get her team closer to victory — and to candy.
“All we need is two more and we have bingo,” 7-year-old Meghan of Ortonville told her teammates as her second-grade class at H.T. Burt Elementary School in Ortonville used their chessboards to play a game of chess bingo. Winners — everyone was a winner eventually — got Smarties.
It might have looked like a fun game, but at Burt every second- and third-grader learns to play chess, part of a unique program this year that integrates the game into the curriculum and school day.
It’s seen as a promising way to help students develop math and critical thinking skills at a time when the state is putting greater emphasis on those areas in school. And on this day students were learning chessboard coordinates.
Burt is among a growing number of schools in Michigan and around the nation trying to find ways to capitalize on the benefits of chess, not just by having chess clubs for kids already interested in the game, but also by weaving it into math and reading lessons.
“It’s a new thing, and my class likes to learn new things. It’s fun and exciting,” said 7-year-old Elyse Kassa of Ortonville, who learned the game from her mother before the classes started at the school.
Burt, in the Brandon School District in Oakland County, is the first school in Michigan to introduce First Move, a program created by America’s Foundation for Chess. It’s become so popular it likely will be expanded district-wide. Other districts, such as Bloomfield Hills Schools, are considering adopting the program.
The Detroit City Chess Club is working with the U.S. Chess Federation on its own program that would have each school in Detroit Public Schools offer chess as an elective course. The program also would train DPS teachers on integrating chess into their classes.
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Matter of fact ,did you know Magnus Carlsen ,future world champ,hates math and does NOT excell in it?
The same holds for ex world champ Bobby Fischer.
Oh,well…
There is no guarantee that children’s math ability will improve just by playing chess, otherwise the whole world would just use chess to teach math. This “chess integrates into math” is really misunderstood by lots of people and peraps a bit blow out of proportion too. No wonder someone will question its value and counter with example that Bobby Fischer hates math.
To play chess in a math class and call it a new way of teaching math is given a wrong idea to people that chess will automatically improve one’s math ability.
Many Chinese kids used to play chess at leisure time (like lunch hour) and many math strong kids in China did not even play chess at all so the subject of math and chess inregration really needs some clarification.
I have done research in the area of math and chess teaching over 10 years and still personally teach both math and chess from kindergarten to grade 12 math so I can speak a lot from my own personal experience and research. The most beneficial experience I have is I peersonally created math and chess integrated worksheets and let my own students to try them out so I know what is going on in the field.
To teach math and chess in the same room is not really weaving chess into math teaching since there is no real math and chess integration in terms of contents. The best we can say is it makes math class more interesting since kids get break time by not doing real math.
My interesting is to see how chess could actually be integrarted into math curriculum and students can “feel” that they are using chess concepts to do math. By doing this real intergration, children becomes more interested in working on math problems and thus increases their math ability. This real integration is what Ho Math and Chess has been successful and achieved what others couod not achieve.
We can only achieve this by inventing many revolutionary and unique products such as Geometric Chess Symbols, Frankho Chess Mazes, and a revolutionary new chess teching set (patent pending).
All detailed information can be found at http://www.mathandchess.com.
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FPawn says he teaches math problems to his chess students.