Six months of chess in the classroom as a learning platform at no cost to the taxpayer or school transformed 40 students from victims into victors. Even as scholarships evaporate and exp
ulsion awaits several senior class members for non-payment of tuition, these students have banded together and opted for strategy over surrender, writing to The White House to challenge the President and his staff to a round of chess.It is standard for private schools nationwide to withhold report cards, transcripts and force expulsion for non-payment and the economy is about to claim the spiritual lives and hard work of the innocent at our little private high school. After all we have achieved together, some will not be able to graduate or transfer to public schools without transcripts. My own sons faced this same fate last year and we are still struggling to pay the private school debt while our sons attend public schools again. I thank my stars the school finally released the transcripts after weeks of groveling and humbling myself to the point of spiritual defeat.
This is not just a job for me; it’s deeply personal. I feel the pain and failure of the struggling parents and the terror and defeat of the students who have just begun to achieve and believe.
This is not just a game for them; this is for all the marbles that realy count for something in this life.
Out of 12 seniors, only two have gained college acceptance and only one a scholarship. While schools nationwide cool their fiscal jets and big businesses retool their corporate jets, teachers are learning to make educational bricks without straw. My classes successfully solicited free chess sets/learning materials/support/direction from: The Hip-Hop Chess Federation, The U.S. Chess Trust, Josh Waitzkin Foundation, House of Staunton and Virginia Scholastic Chess Association. Intel may even be sending a laptop so students can play online for chess scholarships.
When these students began to see the game shift toward a crushing defeat they asked me to help make it right. If I teach them one thing this year it will be, “Never, never, never give up.” We put fear, anger and frustration on the shelf, looked at the board and what material we have left to put into action and decided these dark knights will not go gently into defeat.
The strategy is to find a mate in the White House so that they can always have that one miraculous victory of belonging, not because they are Grandmasters, famous or wealthy, but because they “got game.”
This is an interesting gambit because they are not just thinking of themselves, but have issued the challenge also on behalf of the students in the only other classroom using HHCF Life Strategies Program/chess for teaching: John J. O’Connell School in San Francisco, California. Both schools have students in transformation, from underachievers (in some cases juvenile delinquent) to unsinkable believers. On Rahm Emanuel’s desk there will soon be a long cardboard tube packed with their essays, letters of request and one of their most precious possessions: a scholastic tournament set with “Mr. Prez,” scrawled in Sharpie marker on the circle of green felt under the black King.
Most people perceive private schools as fully-loaded finishing schools, while too often the truth is that many small private schools exist to serve and protect those who could not thrive in public school.
As a journalist transformed by the economy into a high school English and American government teacher it is my responsibility to set the record straight. I teach five, totally different classes each day: American Government, English composition, British Literature, Journalism and creative writing while earning less than $16,000 a year before taxes. I love this job more than anything I have ever done in my lifetime except being the mother of four boys (ages 15, 13, 10 and 5). Our private school is little more than an overlarge portable, no computers in the classrooms and blue collar families working multiple jobs to educate children who could not cope in public schools due to a wide variety of issues ranging from sheer sensitive brilliance to ADD, ADHD, OCD and serious family issues. To connect with these uniquely brilliant minds I had to step out of the box and onto the chess board.
Every student in every class learned to play chess. They all began to think, clearly and often, and before they acted. Achievers blossomed and borderline drop-outs are now making the Honor Roll and seriously thinking about college and jobs that do not involve fries or an orange jumpsuit and leg irons.
In six months these two pilot schools working with the HHCF have built self-esteem, raised standardized test scores and reached those thought to be lost causes. Now it’s all riding on one spectacularly out-of-the-box strategy and a new administration that is being given the opportunity to create change without an Act of Congress.
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