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Checking out chess

Vineland district is using game to build confidence

BY LISA SCHENCKER, Californian staff writer
e-mail: lschencker@bakersfield.com | Saturday, Dec 9 2006 5:25 PM

Last Updated: Saturday, Dec 9 2006 5:29 PM

In one of the poorest corners of Kern County, in a rural school district where most students are learning to speak English, educators are spending time and money on a relatively radical idea.

Actually, it's an old idea being used in a new way: chess.

Once a week at Sunset School in the Weedpatch community, a chess instructor spends about 45 minutes teaching classes of fifth-graders how to play the game. Many schools have chess clubs and tournaments, but in this age of school testing and accountability, they're not usually during class like this.

"I want to show that my students are competitive with everyone else," said Vineland School District Superintendent Adolph Wirth. Last school year, 62 percent of his students were learning to speak English and 97 percent came from low-income families. "Wealth has nothing to do with intelligence."

Wirth believes chess will help his students with English and math by teaching them strategy and concentration.

In fact, he's literally betting on it.

The district is paying chess instructor Chris Torres $3,000 to come in for about a few hours a week for 25 weeks. Wirth has promised to pay Torres double that if his students' exceed their state testing goals this year.

Not that Wirth is terribly concerned with test scores.

"I don't do anything to improve test scores," Wirth said. "I do things to improve education."

That's why he brought in chess.

On a recent school day, Torres, who said he used to hustle tourists during outdoor chess games in the Bay Area, stood at the front of Kala Bogursky's fifth-grade class. He pointed at a chess mat attached to the board and moveda rook to a space he marked A6.

The students, who each sat in front of their own chess boards, moved their rooks to A6.

"Every time we're in opposition, we're going to do the same thing," Torres told the class.

Torres teaches the fifth-graders how to play the game one move at a time. He teaches them what to do when their pieces are in precarious situations. Then he sets them loose to play their own matches.

The hands of fifth-graders Chris Rubio and Vincent Vargas flew across the board as they each moved their first few pieces forward. Then they grew pensive, each boy resting his chin on one hand while he contemplated his next move.

"It teaches you math and how to be quiet in class," Rubio said. "They say if people know how to play chess, they're smart."

Rubio's mother, Anabel Rubio, who is also a school secretary, said chess has given her son confidence in his academics. She said Chris was a C student before he began playing chess. His most recent GPA, she said, was a 3.98.

"I think it's the best thing that's ever happened to him," Anabel Rubio said.

Bogursky, Chris Rubio's teacher, said she believes chess is giving the students confidence.

She also said chess teaches students how to think for themselves in an era when many educators are spoonfeeding students information in hopes of meeting standards.

"It's just as important, if not more important, to teach them how to think as it is to teach them what to think," Bogursky said.

Plus, she added, it's an ideal game for Vineland School District students. It's not too difficult to find cheap chess boards, and it crosses generations.

Fifth-grader Odalys Lopez, who didn't know how to play chess before this school year, said sometimes she plays the game at home with her parents.

"They're learning because I teach them," Lopez said.

Torres said his goal is to get chess into all Kern County schools. That, of course, will likely depend on many factors, including what happens at Vineland, a two-school district surrounded by miles of grape fields.

Wirth acknowledges bringing chess into the classroom is experimental. But he believes Vineland students have just as much potential as students from richer areas. Chess is just one way he's trying to tap it.

If it doesn't work, he said, he'll try something else. He's competitive and wants his students to be competitive in life.

He admits his competitive streak might be a holdover from his days as a high school chess champion.

"I'm a firm believer in chess," he said.