Chess Games

Though in some respects chess games might seem to have an uneasy place in the modern, digitally-powered world of leisure activities, the game appears to be retaining its popularity in the Internet era. While users enjoying playing chess games over the Internet and thereby getting in touch with new friends who share their interests and new plays to gain expertise from, educational authorities and activist figures have been promoting the game of chess throughout the United States as a tool for sharpening students’ minds in regards to issues like problem solving and strategizing. Schools that have sponsored special programs urging students toward the playing of chess games in the face of environments felt to engender low levels of self respect in young people and lead to potential difficulties with the law and issues of substance abuse have also reported encouraging rates of success in using these programs to spread self-esteem in their student bodies and creating excitement for the activity of playing chess.

One source for the continuing support for using chess games to make a positive impact in the lives of the young has come from legislative bodies. In the early months of 2010, it was reported through media outlets that the Rhode Island Senate had passed a resolution aimed towards just this result of enabling the tactic of promoting the playing of chess games as an extracurricular and in school activity aimed at helping students. The legislative measure was not prescriptive and thus will not have any immediate effect on the official policy of Rhode Island schools in regards to the use of chess games as a teaching tool, but it is felt to signal that the environment of support and enthusiasm for such a program is present to enough of a degree to possibly make such a program a reality. The wording of the resolution approved by the legislature announces that the Rhode Island Senate is committed to a recommendation “encouraging the state education commissioner to support chess instruction either in classrooms or clubs in Rhode Island’s public schools.” Despite the merely advisory nature of this move toward the promotion of chess games as a tool for school systems, which may or may not be adopted by officials depending on their final judgment and secondary issues such as the availability of school funds at a time of financial distress for many school districts, its strong wording has cheered commentators who believe in the positive potential of such a move for the lives of young people.

The well-known actor and prominent activist Edward James Olmos is also an advocate of the approach of using the promotion of chess games to improve the self esteem and quality of life for young people. He recently urged the school board for the district of Huntsville, Texas to publicize their successful implementation of just such a program for the benefit of their students. His suggestion has been to make a documentary about the program, which he says “breeds self-respect at the highest level.”