2001-03-13 - 11:59 p.m.

Chess Class

Me and my big mouth.

A couple of weeks ago I got a call from an old girlfriend. I knew her in high school, but she's a mom with two kids now. She wanted to know if I'd be willing to teach a chess class as part of an after-school program at her local Elementary School. I felt that I needed more practice teaching chess, so I said sure. Why not? So she put me in touch with the woman running the program.

The woman explained how it worked to me and she said that it was going to be starting in early March. She also mentioned that they'd cancel my class if less than six kids signed up. I sort of got the impression that there was a very good chance I wouldn't get enough students to run the class.

A couple weeks ago she called me and said that I only got four kids signed up for the class, but they were going to run it anyway.

Okay, I've been giving chess lessons for a while, but mainly to adults and older kids. Teaching a bunch of elementary school age kids is something new to me. Well, almost new. I did it once a few years ago, but I didn’t feel that I was very good at it. I had the impression that I was boring them and they weren't getting anything out of it, but maybe that's just my insecurities talking.

In preparation for the class I talked with some other people who were teaching chess to kids that age, and they gave me some pointers. One of the guys I talked to was one of the floor directors at the State Scholastics a few weeks ago, and he was especially helpful, even giving me the notes to some of his lesson plans.

The class was supposed to start last week, but it was delayed due to the terrible snowstorm. So my first class was today.

Oy.

I don't think it went so well. I mean, it wasn't a disaster, but again I had the feeling that I was boring them and not really teaching them anything. And I had a little discipline problem.

As advertised there were four kids in the class, three boys and a girl. I split them off into teams of two, with the idea that they would be playing each other later in the hour. So, the girl Christine wound up being paired with the boy Tim, and the two boys Eli (who wanted to be called Bill) and Todd were paired together.

The trouble was that while Christine and Tim seemed to be attentive and eager to learn, Eli was sort of on the fence, and Todd was a real problem. He didn't seem to be paying attention to me at all, and frequently was playing little role-playing games with the pieces and talking to himself.

I imagine that when I was a little boy I was sort of a dreamer too, but this kid was really getting on my nerves. What was worse was that his misbehavior seemed to be infecting the others as well. Soon Eli was paying more attention to the goofy stuff that Todd was doing than he was to me.

I found out later from the woman running the classes that Todd had problems like that everywhere he went. It's a relief to know that I'm not unique in having problems with him, but still he made the class very hard to run. Toward the end of the class I was starting to lose patience with him.

I left the last 15 minutes of the class for the kids to play with each other. Tim and Christine seemed to be playing a reasonable game, but from the way they were talking in class I assumed they were better than they really were.

On the other hand, Eli and Todd needed me to stand over them to make them play. Even though it was plain that Todd knew the moves, he kept goofing around, having the pieces talk to each other and so on. Eli and I had to keep reminding him it was his turn to move.

On the other board, Christine got to a position against Tim where she was better, but she couldn't figure out what to do. So, she resigned. Resigned, in a better position. Sigh. I guess I have my work cut out for me.

I found the whole experience demoralizing and exhausting. It certainly gives me a new sense of respect for elementary school teachers who have to deal with this crap all day long.

And, oh yeah. I'm going to have another class with these kids next week and the week after that, and the week after that.

Someone shoot me now.