Youthful Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Koneru Humpy and Divya Deshmukh are prodigies in the game of chess as they got recognitions at the Olympiad, Asian Championships and World Youth Championships. India is proud of them. Academics who studied their achievements arrived at several theories to promote chess, as a game meant not only for young prodigies alone but also for all youth in general to promote their personal effectiveness and associated success.
More than forty years ago, I worked with high school students, though I was working at a college then, to develop their leadership and personal effectiveness. The course of the intervention was for twenty-five days in a year. One evening, a parent walked into my office. After introducing himself; he occupied a coveted position in a reputed organisation and his son was one of the participants of the learning and development intervention; he kept on record his appreciation of our offering chess as a game to the participating students. He said that chess as a game is not promoted in schools or colleges since cricket is given more importance than any other game. He expressed his disapproval of the latter as a game for the youth of the country. Though the office was ready to close for the day, we continued our conversation for over an hour on the need for introducing chess as a game in educational institutions to develop student capabilities and competencies. The major stress was on the need for mind skills development.
I still recall the different arguments that came up in our discussion for keeping chess as the most important game for students to play in our interventions. I had about one hundred students in the interventions, divided into four batches, led by one trained professor. Participants had to be trained as effective individuals. So, they were trained in experiential learning, public speaking, group discussions, art work, writing work, creative work and the game of chess. No traditional teaching was done by any of the professors. The latter’s job was to be available for consultations and also for administering different exercises for learning and development.
Twice a day, an hour was allotted for the game of chess. Fifty chess boards were made available to the participating one hundred students. The most interesting and noteworthy feature in the training programme was to mark the ways in which the participants asked for chess boards and chess sets during the time before the schedule started, during lunch break or sometimes when they waited for their parents to take them back. Sometimes it was very difficult for the facilitators to stop them from playing and get them into the classrooms for their daily schedule of work because they would have been through half of the game when it was time for joining the sessions.
Many parents of the participating students had their apprehensions of the children playing chess, especially because the children asked for the board and chess set to play at home. Some of the children would play alone by considering themselves as two players playing from either side. Some of them taught their parents, mostly the mothers, when they would play at home. The apprehension of some of the parents was that the children were more interested in the game of chess than reading or writing. However, these children had improved their scores in the classroom tests and examinations and the parents were satisfied thereafter.
That indeed is the first thing about children playing chess. The game has all the types of anxieties and pleasures of successful movements like any other game, in fact a little better because they are at their wits best while playing. More importantly, since their movements are restricted, the mind’s work reigns supreme. The application of intelligence in every movement is far more necessary to be used in comparison with games played in a field. Also, the type of anticipation of the opponent’s movement is much more needed in the game of chess. Though, apparently, the briskness of movement of a game in a field is not visible in chess, the truth is that there is far greater mental vibrancy in deciding the movements in a game of chess, particularly because the opponent’s movements have to be anticipated.
A great advantage in the game of chess is that it needs very little space to play. Also, unlike field games, this game can be played at any convenient time. In fact, players are carrying their games with them. There is no way the game can be stopped because of climatic disturbances or commotion or disorder in the area where it is played. Also, mood swings because of the presence of spectators or admirers also does not happen in this quiet game. It is evident and not necessary to stress that the expenses involved in playing the game are very little.
Those who argue against allowing young boys and girls play chess more than any other game refer to the lack of physical fitness through the playing of this game, particularly because it is played mostly in a sitting position. Here, what one has to understand is a genuine reality that mental fitness is a precursor to the physical fitness which will follow. Promoters of the game of chess for children are not demanding that they should play only chess. They argue that this is more important because of its impact on the development of the skills of the mind. The game as it progresses into excellence automatically will result in greater amount of physical fitness that would be followed because of the desire of the chess players to involve themselves in physical exercises or movements after a game. Chess provides the best of mental fitness and consequential involvement in decision making, problem solving, organisation and management. Schools and colleges, and definitely homes, should give greater importance to the promotion of the game of chess so as to build children and youth into capable and competent individuals with their minds ruling them positively and firmly.
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Prof. Sunney Tharappan, is Director of College for Leadership and HRD, Mangaluru. He trains and writes and lives in Mangaluru. Email: tharappans@gmail.com