The Chess Revolution

i’d like to invite you to join me today

at

the table you know tables represent a

lot of things in american society and we

all spend

hours of our life sitting at tables and

often sharing that time with others

for many tables are a representation of

meal time

family dinners around the table where

spouses and parents and children

share the journeys of that day for

others it’s time around a table at their

local

a favorite italian spot with friends and

for others it’s a quiet table

in the corner of an apartment where

someone typically cooks and eats

alone tables are also a representation

of

business big business and corporate

boardrooms around america where

billion dollar mergers and acquisitions

occur the table

is often the place where that business

happens or

it’s the table of an entrepreneur where

he or she writes and rewrites their

business plan every night

for a year and for thousands of years

the table has

represented something done by millions

upon millions each week

communion jesus asked his followers to

do this in remembrance of him as he sat

around the table and

broke bread and shared wine and

thousands of years later his

followers continue to do the same in a

moment in history where there is such a

focus on how we can all

live life together and love each other

well despite our differences

i’d suggest that our tables may tell a

lot about the communities that we live

in

our tables will tell us the

relationships that we invest our time in

based on

who we break bread with and share meals

with our tables will

tell us about the business dealings we

have based on who we trust in our

business

affairs by who we work with at tables

our tables will tell a lot about our

faith communities and and who we worship

with as we sing songs like

red and yellow black and white they are

precious in his sight

but there’s another thing that a table

can represent that i’d like to present

to you today it’s a table that’s been

around since the 6th

century and at the table that you’re

seeing more and more in the chattanooga

area

it’s a table that has no age barriers no

race barriers no shame barriers no

socioeconomic bears no educational

barriers

all are welcome at this table all are

equal at this table and

you sit down with a handshake and you

stand up with a handshake it’s it’s a

beautiful table

and i wish that every representation of

tables could look

just like this i personally remember the

very first time i sat down at this table

an older gentleman from our church a

retired firefighter with two huge

dalmatians and

invited me over one day mr gordon

was his name and as i entered his house

uh the table was prepared i could see it

in the corner and i

and i walked over and had my eyes fixed

on what was in front of me

and on the table was a board with 64

squares

eight squares across eight squares up

and down

you know about half of these squares

were pieces that looked a little

foreign to me at that time i didn’t know

what this game was i didn’t know what it

represented and i had no clue

the impact that it was going to have on

me

but i’ll never forget the first day that

i set at the table

and was introduced the game of chess

now chess has its beginning over 1500

years ago but the way that we play today

and

the formalization of the pieces came

around the 19th century

it’s a game of rooks and knights

bishops and pawns and of course the king

and the queen it’s a game of strategy a

game of

offense and defense and hey do a quick

google search about how many people

played chess today and you’ll see it’s a

it’s a very small number of 605 million

people but why are we talking about

chess in a ted talk

focused on chattanooga well let me take

you back to that day in fifth grade when

i was introduced to the game

as coincidence would have it my

elementary school in east nashville

rosebank elementary

was introducing a chess club the very

same year that mr gordon was

teaching me the game and we weren’t just

a club

i mean we were playing in tournaments

and we were playing well

and in fact here’s a picture of the 1992

rose bank elementary team at the

national championships that’s

me rocking the turtleneck and nathaniel

and vernon and

that was our team now rose bank ended at

sixth grade so i had to

transfer to a middle high school that

didn’t have a chess club and of course

that means i had to get one started and

for the rest of my schooling career we

only went to one more national

championship but we’re always

competitive in the state of tennessee

but

during high school i was introduced to

something

new i started playing in open chess

tournaments instead of just scholastic

ones through the schools and

as i said at the table in these new

environments i

started sitting across from people of

all ages both younger

and older of all backgrounds of of all

personality types and

again as we said at the table we were

all equal

we started the game with a handshake and

we ended the game with a handshake

now i’ll be honest i had no clue at the

time the impact that this game was

having on me and in fact i didn’t really

realize it until

january of 2019 almost 20 years after i

graduated from high school

my wife and i moved from florida back to

chattanooga and we were looking at ways

that we could get invested in the

community and i saw an instagram post of

a friend of mine saying that there was a

chess

team at a new charter boys school called

chattanooga prep and that moment

the memories came flooding back to my

mind of my childhood

and i knew i had to get involved so that

these kids could have the same journey

that i did and as i got involved i

started

realizing the impact that this game had

had on my

professional career my academic career

my personal life

and i knew i had to help others have

that journey and as i got involved i

looked around chattanooga and i saw the

impact it was

starting to have on our city and so

today there’s two paths that i want to

take us down first of all i want us to

look at the

impact of chess on kids then secondly i

want to look at the growing revolution

of chess

in chattanooga and i’ll bring those two

paths together

my challenge for you is going to be to

introduce

this game to the kids that you influence

in chattanooga so let’s talk about kids

in chess now my wife and i don’t have

kids but i am a former kid

myself and and the question people

always ask is

do smart kids play chess or does kids or

does chess make kids smart

now there there are many different

studies out there that that look into

this question but there’s three of them

that i want to highlight

and i believe that this game can have a

positive impact on the reading and

comprehension skills the math skills the

strategic thinking

capabilities on anyone that plays this

game

but especially it can have this impact

on kids

i know it had that impact on me so let’s

start with a study in alabama

phds from the university of alabama and

tennessee tech university

conducted a multi-year study where they

took one control group of 800 students

that played chess

one to two hours a week and they had a

second control group of students

that didn’t play chess and each year

they conducted examinations of the

participants in multiple areas to see

where improvements have been made and

they can

compare the two groups now here’s two

quotes from that story from that study

for the 21st century skills measurement

when comparisons with the control group

were possible

the study reported that students exposed

to chess were on

average consistently rated by their

teachers as having made improvements

and then secondly chess instruction had

the most presumed effect on five

constructs

overall engagement critical thinking

strategic thinking systems thinking

and problem solving okay let’s look at a

second report

dr david poston from the los alamos

national laboratory in

new mexico conducted a study of over 800

students and found that

students who participated in chess club

received a

seven percent yearly boost to their math

scores

compared to students that didn’t play

now watch this students who participated

in united states chess federation

tournaments enjoyed a 28

boost to math scores and a 10 boost to

reading scores

basically the more chess the student

played

the better they performed academically

and third let’s look at a country that’s

buying into these studies

armenia is making chess mandatory

in all schools beginning at age six now

chess is certainly a national obsession

in armenia but armenian authorities say

teaching chess in school

is not about building chess champions

it’s about building

character they see it as a social

gateway something that people of all

ages

all physical makeups all social statuses

that they can bond over

and the education minister of armenia

says that taking the past time of

chess into classrooms will help nurture

a sense of responsibility

and organization among school children

now if you aren’t the biggest fan of

going back and

reading studies and looking through

statistics let me encourage you to

watch on the big screen some of the real

life stories

of the impact of chess on kids

first you got to watch the queen of

cotway it’s about

a ten-year-old girl named fiona living

in the slum of cotway in

uganda and she meets a missionary who

teaches kids

how to play chess and fiona becomes

fascinated with the game she

soon becomes a top player in her country

and her success

opens the door to a bright future and

the chance to escape

from a life of poverty then there’s the

famous movie

of searching for bobby fischer it’s

about a seven-year-old named

josh waitskin he beats his dad in chess

at a match at home

he starts playing speed chess in the

local park and soon gets noticed for his

talent at such a young age

he goes on to become a national champion

and the real josh waitskin

has a wonderful book called the art of

learning where he talks about his

chess journey as a kid or you could

watch the documentary called

brooklyn castle it’s about an inner city

public school in brooklyn that has an

after-school chess program that has has

such great support from the educators

and the community this school program

has built the most

winning chess team in the united states

and

in the documentary follows five of the

school’s members uh

for one year and documents their their

challenges and their triumphs both on

and off the chess board and last my

favorite movie

life of a king it’s the story of an

ex-con played by cuba gooding jr

determined to help at risk kids avoid

the mistakes that he

made and after picking up the game in

prison he forms a chess club for

for inner city teenagers at a washington

dc high school and it’s the real life

story

of the big chair chess club founded by

eugene brown and

in 2002 that still exists to this day

so these are the studies and these are

the stories you can go explore about

about other people in other places

but now let me tell you what’s happening

right here in chattanooga

first let me introduce you to chess

ninja

thomas lane moved to chattanooga in 2016

and he had a vision

of a chess movement in elementary

schools across our city

coach t as his students call him has a

has a special gift of communication with

kids

and he has a great ability to make this

game easy to learn

for people of all ages and and chess

ninja is now in 15 schools

across chattanooga and then a couple

years later a community program called

kingship chess academy was started by

anthony gladden in 2019

and if you’ve ever met anthony you know

he is passionate about bringing this

game to kids

and the mission of kingship is simply

this

to help children living in chattanooga

reach their full

potential by teaching them this game

and you can find kingship chess academy

in pop-up events and group lessons

in recreation centers across chattanooga

now if you’ve been around chess in our

city very long you’ve heard the name

ray hayes he was instrumental in chess

in this city starting in the 90s and

there’s even an

annual tournament named after him and so

in the summer of 2019

i played in the in the ray hayes

memorial tournament it was my first

chess tournament

in 16 years and it was here that i

realized how strong the tournament scene

was in chattanooga both for adult

and scholastic players throughout 2019 i

attended

multiple tournaments and it was just a

beautiful scene walking into rooms

full of enthusiasm with people from all

different walks of life

but there’s more a chess brand is being

launched this month in chattanooga

called

e4 chess brand e4 is the first move of

many chess matches and

while there are millions of chess

players in the world there’s no brand

that unifies them and so chattanooga

will be home with the brand

that hopefully does that and to top it

off

word of this growing chess community in

chattanooga made its way to arguably the

most

well-known chess player in the united

states maurice ashley

maurice lives in brooklyn and he was the

first african-american

chess grand master in the u.s and guess

what

last year he heard about everything

going on to chat in chattanooga and he

had to come check it out

and he came down here and played chess

with some of our local kids

i tell you about the studies and the

stories of chess and other places but a

revolution is happening here in

chattanooga and it’s a beautiful thing

and now as you walk around chattanooga

in the coming weeks

keep your eyes out for a new table in

town

well it’s it’s a table that’s been

around hundreds and hundreds of years

but it’s finally taking over

our city you’ll find this table in

schools

in homes in the ymca in hutton and smith

in mad priest in miller plaza and all

throughout our city

it’s a table where all are welcome we’re

all our equal

it’s a table where you sit down you

shake hands and when you stand up you

shake hands

it’s a table that empowers and brings

confidence

to all who play my challenge to you is

this

is there a child in your life that you

want to introduce

to this table that you think can benefit

from learning this

great game a child that you want to find

great success in strategic thinking and

in math and in reading and in problem

solving if so

chattanooga has become a city with many

opportunities for children

to learn chess

they just need someone to introduce them

to it

just like mr gordon did for me back in

the fifth grade

thanks for spending time with me today

at the table