School Chess or Competitive Chess?

Should chess be at the disposal of didactics and "offer" their peculiar characteristics in order to implement and complement the students' growth path or should they be "taught" in a traditional way, providing the students with an extra tool that they will then develop and include in their personal growth path?

I want to premise that in my opinion both approaches can be considered positively, they simply have different aims and modalities. However for a real development of chess at school level the first hypothesis seems to be certainly the most promising: a way that, also through the direct involvement of teachers, makes chess a real basic tool for a teaching specifically aimed at strengthening some specific skills of pupils.

For example, a logical mathematical context is an obvious one, but not to be overlooked is also the social context and the direct implications that the practice of chess has in establishing relationships with others, in a regulated system based on mutual respect, understanding and integration.

From these considerations another question arises: must the chess instructor necessarily be a strong player, with great specific knowledge, or is it enough the simple figure of the teacher who with professionalism and passion uses chess as a guide to set his teaching action?

The stated aim of the article, as he himself writes, is to “ argue that regular classroom teachers can be trained to teach chess. Furthermore, this is not an onerous task. In fact, it is fun to learn and very rewarding to teach”.

Of course Foley makes his points of view that can be accepted in whole or in part or not at all. An important aspect of his article, however, is that at the center of everything are the children and their needs. One of the most frequent educational errors is to submit the needs of children to those of the instructor, an attitude that in any activity is certainly censurable and, above all, unproductive if not even damaging.