Interest in the game of chess has surged in the US recently with chess sets flying off the shelves thanks to the popularity of the Netflix series, The Queen’s Gambit. In a recent newsletter from the Multiple Intelligences Network, Dr. Thomas Hoerr reflects on chess, multiple intelligences, and education. An excerpt from his article is reproduced below.
Way back in the 1970s when I was teaching fifth grade, I was a chess aficionado. (That’s a fancy way of saying that I liked to play chess but wasn’t very good.) I taught chess to my students and we often played over lunch or at recess. More than being a fun game and an opportunity for many students to find success, I also felt that playing chess was a great way to teach kids to anticipate the consequences of their actions. The student who couldn’t understand why punching someone in the arm might cause a problem could see why moving a rook to this square might be a bad decision. And, hopefully, sometimes the logic used for rooks transferred to what to do and not do while standing in line.
Later, when I was leading New City School, we held various board-game tournaments to show kids that you didn’t need batteries to have fun, and chess was prominent among them (along with checkers, Boggle, and Othello). Each grade’s tournament produced winners and they all played an adult in a school-wide tournament. I simultaneously played the chess grade-level winners in the library. Once we began to have a chess club, I was pleased to win half of my games. This picture features the students who beat me eating their ice cream to celebrate their victory. (Notice the size of their group!)
Howard Gardner has said that skill in playing chess draws from both the logical-mathematical and spatial intelligences, and the latter was prominent in the recent Netflix series, “The Queen’s Gambit” as Beth Harmon envisioned chess moves on the ceiling. The series has given chess a boost of momentum and this issue of Intelligence Connection features some thoughts on chess. Dr. Google says, “Chess.com, the most-visited global website for online chess play, expects 10 years’ worth of site growth to occur within the next few months. It has gained more than 700,000 members over the past three weeks, according to figures provided to Sporting News, and last weekend elevated to 9.1 million games played per day.”
I regularly read Kristi’s Corner, a weekly column written by Kristi Arbetter, an instructional coach in the Hazelwood, MO school district. No matter how busy or tired I am, it always gives me joy and causes me to think. I thought you might enjoy her October 16 contribution, stemming from chess: https://www.smore.com/6kgw8
This article, “Story of Queen’s Gambit Raises Questions for Educators,” by Geoff Johnson, looks at Beth Harmon’s giftedness and questions whether we should be doing more for students with extreme talents.
Finally, continuing on the theme of exceptionally gifted children, I reprint a column by Ellen Winner, “A Rage To Learn” (which was also in the November 2018 issue of Intelligence Connections), now from Howard Gardner’s website: https://howardgardner.com/2018/12/10/a-rage-to-master-a-blog-on-gifted-children-by-dr-ellen-winner/
Thomas R. Hoerr is emeritus head of school at the New City School in St. Louis, Missouri. He is currently a Scholar In Residence at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and teaches in the Educational Leadership program, preparing prospective principals.