As the kids we teach progress in their chess skills, the challenges of teaching them change. For instance at the beginning of last semester the challenge was finding a way to communicate to them basic facts about chess, how the pieces moves and how you win. But as their strategy has improved so has the challenge of teaching across language barriers. Now we are attempting to teach them more complicated concepts such as the strategic sacrifices of pieces and the combination of specific piece patterns to your advantage. As we approach the less concrete concepts the language barrier gets harder. Communicating complex concepts in concrete ways is definitely a new challenge. So far the best progress I have made with this has been when I let the more advanced kids play each other and then help them by moving their pieces and pointing out moves. It seems to help them get it if I show them examples of what I'm trying to communicate within games they are playing.
(Me watching 2 of the advanced players playing, and assisting when needed)
I have been building relationships with the older kids slowly, and have been trying to teach them not just things about chess strategy but about life and competitions . For instance I worked with the girl picture to get her to understand about emotions in chess. I told her that often getting men or better but emotional opponents angry with erratic moves you can win a game.
I hope that by teaching the kids not just the principles behind chess but also the principles behind teaching we can address the larger global issue of community building and access to educations. By providing underprivileged studnets with the tools to learn to teach through chess that some day they can take what they know, weather it be about chess or not, and teach their fellows therefore expanding access to community education through community outreach.
