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