English Chess Forum

I only saw this by chance today (articles about chess are still running in the print version of the Evening Standard!) and thought it deserved a wider audience

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comme ... 05646.html

I thought it deserved a narrower audience.

Why?

Because nothing in the piece suggests that Amol Rajan has anything particularly useful or knowledgeable to say about education.

Thanks for flagging up this interesting article Jonathan.
Graveney School itself has a chess club which would itself benefit from Amol Rajan's suggested support of school chess.

That article tells us nothing, thankfully its very short.

It would be nice to know where the chess teachers are coming from to support this idea. I am not sure we have enough.

I would legally enforce rote learning of English poetry, particularly from the Renaissance.

Absolutely!

Exactly what the inhabitants of Plaistow, Southall, Moss Side, Handsworth and Toxteth need.

Andrew Martin wrote:It would be nice to know where the chess teachers are coming from to support this idea. I am not sure we have enough.

I would be pretty sue it won't happen, and pretty sure we wouldn't have enough - however, is this a catch 22 situation i.e. we haven't enough because there aren't enough teaching opportunities, or do we simply not have enough players who could teach?

As a retired secondary school teacher of 32 years experience, I can tell you that compulsory chess lessons will go down like a lead balloon with the vast majority of students no matter who is giving the lessons.

Robert

Yes, and many will end up hating chess for life if not longer... .

But what about English renaissance poetry? Surely the surliest teenage brute would be stirred by The Faerie Queene

If it's put into rap-form then perhaps.

And hopefully done better than this.