Team of California Chess Queens Wins

Local girls win at chess

Ukiah Daily Journal Staffukiahdailyjournal.com

Updated: 02/16/2013 12:34:01 PM PST

The Ukiah Daily Journal

 

Chess Queens from the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas Instilling Goodness Elementary School prevailed at the all girls chess touranment in Santa Rosa on Saturday, Feb. 9.

 

Four of the nine girls in Ms. Light's Chess Club who attended won first place trophies at this 4th annual all girls chess tournament in Santa Rosa.

 

This year it was a benefit to support Sonoma County Girls on the Run, a nonprofit with a mission to prepare girls for a lifetime of healthy living and self-respect.

 

The first place winners were: Joy Sun, grade 6; Kaili Golden, grade 5; Oceana Sipila, grade 4; and Amelia Adams, grade 2. Other Chess Queens attending and placing were: Ayled Alfaro, Nevaeh Storie, Sierra Sipila, Hailey Luong, Reina Pittman.

Chess is a game that helps improve concentration and critical thinking skills and fosters self-discipline and sportsmanship. Light has 20 girls who have joined her chess club.

Detective "Cookie" Teaches Real Life Lessons With Chess

From king5.com

Kids learn chess and life lessons from SPD detective
by TONYA MOSLEY / KING 5 News

Posted on September 22, 2011 at 3:36 PM

Updated today at 6:01 PM

SEATTLE -- A Seattle Police detective is making a difference in children's' lives in a way she never thought -- through chess.

Her students call her Detective Cookie, a name she earned years ago for her love of sweets, but Detective Denise Bouldin has figured out the way to teach kids in the Rainier Valley about life through the movements of the pieces on a chess board.

"Chess is like in the real world...you gotta be careful, you gotta think, you gotta make the right decision," she tells fourth graders at Van Asselt Elementary School. "Because if you do something too quickly something could happen, there could be consequences."

This will become a year long relationship of learning. And Detective Cookie gets right down to what's important.

"Maybe somebody wants you to join a gang or maybe somebody wants you to do something that's negative," she says. "Let's put that whole situation on the chess board."
Detective Cookie understands she's not only teaching them a game, she's also giving her perspective and life lessons.

"When I was growing up I did not like the police," she says. "I grew up in Chicago in the projects there was people that was giving back in those kind of ways that kept me off the street."
"It's kind of like this is your family and you have to try to protect them so nothing bad happens to them," says one student of his chess pieces.

Detective Cookie has much more on the horizon this year. She's starting a sudoku club, a knitting class and a book club at the Rainier Vista Boys and Girls Club.

Learning Chess Assists At-Risk Students

From The Wall Street Journal:

Monday, September 27, 2010
Chess, as a Survival Skill
School Uses Chess to Teach Self-Control, Critical Thinking to Troubled Students

By STEPHANIE BANCHERO
ST. LOUIS—At a school for troubled kids on this city's tough North Side, life's lessons are learned on a chessboard. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for The Wall Street Journal.  Brandi, right, playing chess Thursday at a St. Louis school for students with behavioral problems that requires them to take classes in the game.)

In Room 103, Marqwon, 16 years old, kicked out of his regular school for bringing in a nail-studded piece of wood, tapped his forefinger in the air as he mapped out his next six moves.

Across the board, 15-year-old Joann, sent here after throwing a punch at a classmate, was losing the match and wasn't happy about it.

"You're just embarrassing me," she said, toppling her king with a smack. "You know it's over."

Her action coaxed chess instructor Bill Thompson to the table. "Let's not give up," he said. "Let's think of a way to get out of this."

Chess has been a part of after-school programs for at least 40 years, but mainly in the suburbs. In the last decade, it has exploded in popularity in urban areas as research showed that students who play chess do better on achievement exams, especially math.

But few schools offer chess as an academic subject—and fewer still require it, especially for students already labeled as troublemakers, like the ones here.

Innovative Concept Academy was opened last year by a St. Louis Juvenile Court Judge Jimmie Edwards. Tired of watching teenagers get kicked out of school, land in his courtroom and then drop out, Mr. Edwards created his own school to nurture students back to academic, emotional and mental health. The city's school district pays for the building and teachers, while money from not-for-profit groups provides the rest of the funding.

The Academy, housed in a three-story former middle school, caters to sixth through 12th graders who have either been suspended or expelled for fighting, bringing weapons to class, getting caught with drugs or other illegal or disruptive behavior.

The top floor of the three-story school is occupied by teenagers who have been criminally charged and gone through the juvenile court system.

Students attend class from 9 a.m. until 5:45 p.m. and have access to counselors, psychologists and mentors. Aside from the academics, the school offers courses in ballroom dance, creative writing and golf.

The twice weekly chess classes are mandatory for most of the school's 97 students and are an integral part of Mr. Edwards's strategy to curb bad behavior and teach alternatives to violence. He knows that chess won't solve all the behavior problems, but says it offers lessons about self-control and critical thinking.

"Most of my kids are impulsive, reactionary and they lash out without thinking through the consequences," said Mr. Edwards, who walks the school's halls almost daily. "Chess teaches them patience and teaches them that there are consequences to bad decisions."

"In chess, you can lose your queen," he added. "In life, you can lose your life."

The chess program at the Academy is paid for by the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, which opened in 2008 and already has 700 members.

The club wants to make St. Louis the chess capital of the U.S. and has hosted the national chess, national women's chess and junior chess championships.

About a million students play chess in local clubs and after-school programs, officials of the United States Chess Federation estimate. Chuck Lovingood, who oversees scholastic chess programs for the non-profit group, said chess teaches students problem-solving, focus and how to build—then execute–a plan.

"Chess is not a game of instant gratification, and that is an important life skill for all children to learn," he said.

In one 90-minute chess class earlier this week, many life lessons were on display.

When the instructor suggested Joann find a way out of her predicament—Marqwon had her Queen trapped in one corner of the board—she plotted a strategy to escape, then knock off his knight.

Joann, who had never played chess until this school year, eventually lost. But she captured seven of Marqwon's pieces and made him chase her around the board.

Chess, said Joann, "messes with your brain and makes you think about something before you do it. And it makes you think there's a way out of something if you think about it hard enough."

Jesus, an 18-year-old junior, learned the hard way that impulsiveness is a bad trait in chess. When an opponent tried to capture Jesus' pawn with a knight, Jesus reached for his rook, hoping to take the opponent's knight.

But the boy had not yet lifted his hand to complete his initial move and he quickly pulled back his knight.

"Bro, you're cheating," Jesus screamed out.

But the opponent pointed out that, until he lifted his hand off the piece, the move was not complete. Jesus leaned back in his chair, covered his face with his hands and groaned. "You're right," he said.

Chess Can Reduce Anxiety

Story from the San Francisco Chronicle Brain workout may help anxiety, study suggests Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, December 17, 2008 Could Sudoku be a balm for anxious people? A new study suggests that intellectually demanding challenges like crossword puzzles or chess may be more successful at keeping worry-prone people from worrying than supposedly relaxing pastimes like watching TV or shopping. Contrary to theories that "as things get harder, anxious people fall apart, this suggests it's the opposite way around," said UC Berkeley psychologist Sonia Bishop, lead researcher on the study published online this week by Nature Neuroscience. The study showed that anxious people performed just as well as others when facing tasks that demanded concentration, but they took more time than others to complete tasks that were easier, Bishop said. Their slower response time to challenges not requiring full attention was accompanied by reduced blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, which serves as the brain's CEO in thinking, planning and active memory. The study indicated that anxious individuals have a weakened ability to block out distractions and that they might benefit from mindfulness training, which often uses meditation and stress-reduction exercises to help increase one's awareness and focus. "With some very popular therapies like mindfulness training, people aren't sure why they work," Bishop said. "This perhaps gives us a rationale for why they do." The results also challenge another explanation for why anxious people face day-to-day problems in concentration and work-related cognitive function, Bishop said. It has been argued that the "fight or flight" response center of the brain, the amygdala, overreacts to threat-related stimuli in anxious people, thus playing a central role in undermining concentration. But the new study suggests that attention-focusing ability in such individuals is impaired even when the amygdala is not extra-active, and thus their difficulties with concentration may be determined by a different mechanism, she said. The study consisted of simple letter-recognition tests given to 17 volunteers, ages 19 to 48, while blood flow to a section in the front of the brain called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was measured by magnetic resonance imaging. The volunteers, seven female and 10 male, were from Cambridge, England, where Bishop did research at the University of Cambridge before becoming an assistant professor at Berkeley in July. The results were scored according to the difficulty of the tests, including the distraction level of extraneous elements, and correlated to the volunteers' degree of anxiety. Surveys indicate that nearly a fifth of U.S. adults suffer from one or more anxiety disorders in a given year, Bishop noted in the study, titled "Trait anxiety and impoverished prefrontal control of attention."

Learn Life Skills by Learning Chess

This week Errol Tiwari writes about an upcoming clinic in his hometown to teach kids how to play chess, and plugs the benefits of learning how to play: Chess with Errol Tiwari You want smarter kids? Then take them to the chess clinic Sunday, August 12th 2007 It is said that chess is the gymnasium of the mind. We know it is the classic game of strategy. Fortunately, it can be played by anyone and everyone. It is a thinking game, and has this image of a brainy pastime. But children as young as five, six or seven, have been able to learn and grasp the basics of the game. In selected elementary schools overseas, chess is a regular part of the maths curriculum. Why? As kids play chess they actually use logic and problem-solving skills. They learn to develop strategies because it is necessary to plan ahead, and this represents excellent training for a young, undeveloped mind. It teaches the child patience and concentration; the importance of analysis and how to draw on memory. Chess has the virtue of being completely free of the element of luck. The result of each game depends entirely upon the skill of the player. When a child plays chess he or she soon learns that failure cannot be blamed on anyone else. Results are completely owing to a child's own abilities and efforts, and that child must take responsibility for his or her own actions. Victory is earned and savoured as a personal accomplishment. The ancient and regrettable notion that chess is for a privileged few is false. Everyone who learns chess gets immediate benefits; and everyone decides for themselves how far chess can take them - from absolute beginner to chess master. Beginning tomorrow, August 13 and continuing until Friday, August 17, a chess clinic will be held for kids/teenagers at the Carifesta (National Service) Sports Club on Carifesta Avenue. The committee which has been established to promote chess locally has been requested by Dr Frank Anthony, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport to organize the programme. The committee is inviting thirty school-age kids and youths to participate in the programme. Each participant is required to complete an application form at the Oasis Café in Carmichael Street, and the first 30 applicants will enter the programme. Participants will be taught the moves of the game and how to play. They will also be given a demonstration on how to use the chess clock. Parents, if you want your kids to be smarter, if you want them to be focused, if you want them to observe carefully and concentrate on an assignment deeply, bring them to the chess clinic. We intend to begin at 9.30 am and end at 1 pm each day. There will be a one-hour lunch break. Admission to the programme is free. The clinic is being sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport.