Striving for Excellence in Coaching Chess
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Striving for Excellence in Coaching Chess “I loved chess before I knew how the pieces moved. Because I loved my dad and he loved chess.” - Coach Jay Dad won the Florida Experts Championship in 1963 with a 2340 (strong Master) rating performance. I was born a few years later. In 1971, when I was five years old, Dad taught me how to play. A year or two after that, my life changed forever when I beat my older brother at something for the first time. On January 21, 1994, I taught my first chess class. Six months later, I quit my day job. Creating Interest for Chess in Your Community Creating an interest in chess, starts with creating an interest in the coach. Passionate Interesting Fun Rewarding Stories Calculation COACH CLASS CHESS Animated Interested Surprises Connected Challenging Toys Coach The coach is passionate about teaching, about chess, about fostering an enthusiasm for learning. The coach should be equipped with interesting material. Don’t bore the kids! The most effective coaches are animated enough to keep the kids’ attention after a day of school. A coach must be interested in the students. Know their names and their personalities. Class Why would someone sign up for a class that wasn’t fun? Every class rewards the kids with knowledge. Add more rewards and get more interest. How is each student connected to your class and to his/her classmates? Strengthen that bond. Even the less ambitious children need to be challenged. They love answering a challenge. Chess Know your chess history, especially the amazing stories. Share it with the kids. Make them calculate. Make it look tough, but talk them through it. It’s thrilling! Everyone loves toys – apps, websites, even chess books! Introduce them to your students. Our favorite thing to do in chess is surprise our opponent. Show them shockingly brilliant moves. © 2015 Coach Jay’s Chess Academy 1 Why Chess? Why MORE Chess? Parents and school administrators need to know why their children/students should learn and play chess. Then, why should they continue to do it year after year. Take every opportunity to communicate the benefits of the royal game. We (chess coaches) are indeed fortunate. We are not selling a product that people don’t really need. The more our students are involved in chess the better it is for us and for them. Do we need to be salespeople? Yes, we really do. But it’s not at all a bad thing. Think of it from the parent’s perspective – they signed their child up for chess, hoping that it will give them all of the benefits that have been advertised. The more their child is involved, the more benefits they will enjoy. To be the best salespeople, we need to know our market and have an overall marketing plan. Basically, you have four types (levels) of students: 1. Love chess and are willing to work hard to excel at it, 2. Love chess and enjoy playing often, 3. Like chess, but mainly for the social aspect and because it’s a break from Child Care, and, 4. Not really interested, but the parents signed them up for just this one session because they think that their kid should at least learn how to play. Also, it gives the parent an extra hour. “The easiest customer to get is the one you already have.” Your goal (marketing plan)? Move students up a group each session. Each coach will find their own tools to help them accomplish this. Try to keep track of who falls under what number. Very often, you won’t have more than a handful of #1’s in any of your schools, but if you don’t TRY to move Group 2 into Group 1, they will feel the neglect and will surprise you by dropping out. Effective Coaching Techniques Know their names. Use your cell phone to make a video of the class saying their names. Start with yourself. Review it right before that class each week. Use softballs for those who are not confident. “Softballs” are easily-answered questions. When a struggling student correctly answers this easy question, give them an “I’m impressed” eyebrow raise, but otherwise move on like it’s an everyday occurrence. If they are younger (Kinder or first grade), do the opposite – make a big deal with high fives and applause from the class. When teaching a technique or pattern, begin with the final position and step backwards. When we know our end goal, it makes it easier to see the path. You can see this technique being used to teach Smothered Mate in the diagrams below. # 1 # 2 # 3 2 Teach a concept then start with challenging puzzles, then offer easier ones. It’s counter- intuitive, but it’s how you test those students who are quickly picking up the concept. If you are teaching castling, for example, use Position 1 to explain the idea, Position 2 (and ones of that level) to test your strongest students before dismissing them, and Position 3 as a starting point for re-teaching the lesson so your less-experienced students can grab on to the concept. The question for these below: Explain why White/Black can/cannot castle kingside/queenside. # 4 # 5 # 6 Clear out proficient kids whom others lean on. Don’t make a huge deal of this unless the kids are really complaining about not getting to move on to the next station; if that happens, spell out the system for them: “Once I know that you understand the concept, then you can move on to solve the puzzles in your book.” For a child who struggles and is always the last in the group, arrange with a coach ahead of time to keep a very close eye on him/her, then throw a softball to the student and dismiss with the students who always get dismissed first. This will build confidence. Use active (disruptive) students as junior coaches. This is a win-win-win. The active student reinforces concepts, a newer student receives one-on-one attention, and your class is less crazy. Don’t escalate a confrontation with a student. This is critical. Poor handling of a confrontation can result in more than just one lost student. It could end your program at that school, in the district, and worse. (See appendix for “Methods of De-escalation”) Use a new teaching method even if it’s not yet mastered. It’s okay that your students can tell that this is the first time you are using this method. If you are explaining a concept, and it suddenly occurs to you that there is a good analogy, don’t put it off until you have prepared it – use that idea right away. The students will sense your adventurous learning spirit and go along for the ride. Break things up, but don’t be too funny or distracting. Make your funny stories last no more than one or two minutes, then quickly segue into an interesting concept or comment that stops them from talking amongst themselves about how funny your story was. Reward good citizenship randomly. Once or twice a year, at schools that really seem tough to control, I quietly take out a dollar and hand it to a child who is minding their manners and say “Thank you for being respectful.” Try it – it’s worth the dollar! 3 Talk to parents about something positive their child contributed (in front of child). This is another win-win-win. The student is the star. You are the star teacher delivering great news. The parent is a fantastic parent for having a child who is obviously the next Magnus Carlsen. This will encourage more practice at home and continued participation in class. Lecture Strategies & Techniques Minimal dead time – talk while you set up the next position. Face the class and maintain eye contact as much as possible. Whisper & lean in (like you are sharing a secret with them). Raise your own hand as you ask a question so students are reminded to do the same. Talk your calculating method out loud as if you are solving the puzzle with the class. Name patterns (for that lesson) after the kid who figured it out. Find something positive in every wrong answer. Otherwise, they will stop participating. For castling – have every student do it on your demo board while you repeatedly remind them of the rules and reasons for castling. Typical School Class Issues and Solutions Love to play, hate to work. Issue: The students only want to play chess and don’t want to learn anything new. Solution: Don’t bring out the chessboards until after the lesson/worksheets. Love to work, hate to play. Issue: The students don’t want to play chess, they just want to solve puzzles in their lesson books. Solution: Give small rewards for results in mini-simuls*. Use a coach or advanced student to give the simul. A draw earns a chess pencil. A win earns a chess pawn keychain. Use domination endgame positions and have the students take notation if they know how. Older students are bad examples. Issue: Your older students are the ones the others look to as role models. If they are not behaving, it will only get worse. Solution: Have a special meeting only for your oldest students. Talk to them like they are adults and let them know that the younger players need strong role models. Use a demo board to review some important ideas (development, Scholar’s Mate, basic endgame ideas) that they can teach (re-teach) to the younger students.