Chess in the school curriculum? Good idea or bad idea?

mmm chess players with some sort of formation to be able to teach should give the class and it should be payd by the parents or the institution/government no idea on that one.

Nothing should be dropped from the curriculum, I still remember wen I was growing up I would have school from 08-19 daily and everyone survived :) nowadays they have classes from 08.30-14 in the hard days! :)

I think chess should be like a "forced" extra Maybe some ratings could be ok to keep interest. And Im talking about the yonger kids 8-12 not sure how it would be with a lil older ones, never saw anyone do it or any study about it, but should be interesting, making yong people like 16+ have to take chess

"Nothing should be dropped from the curriculum, I still remember wen I was growing up I would have school from 08-19 daily and everyone survived :) nowadays they have classes from 08.30-14 in the hard days! :)"

AnthonyCG beat me to it.  Lengthening school days is something many districts are looking at, but not so chess can be included. Lengthening days is a big deal and costly.  My school cut 5 min here and there from transition times to increase instruction time (without deriving them of recess time - how could taking recess away seem like a good idea to anyone?) but we only got about 15 min extra - great, but still not enough for mandatory chess instruction.

Good idea but most likely poor execution.

Mandatory I can only see it happening in private pre-schools and first grades, and a mandatory just like sports that really counts for nothing on the matter if pupils pass or flunk the year, anyway if anyone stays behind at 8 its mummas fault!

Chess is in general a peacful pursuit, and religion causes more strife on this earth than anything else, so drop R.E. or Humanities as it gets called nowadays.

Who is going to teach it?

It is so easy to learn we taught ourselves with the aid of 'The Rudiments of Chess'

The only chess book I ever read.

When I say read, I mean looked at how the pieces  move, and what checkmate meant, ok we didn't use castle and EP was unheard of but we played passable chess, and all the teachers ever did was stop us from playing at the start of lessons.

I think the school days (hours) of Europe are vastly different from the US. I went to school in the 60s in 3 different US states and the daily ( Mon-Fri) hours were from 0800-1530 every day for all the years from grade 1-12. I now live in Europe and notice that the students here seem to have much longer "days" in school. I dont think chess should be mandatory simply because not every student will like chess and its not necessary to their proper education imo. It would be nice if every school offered it as an extra-curricular activity though, like sports, band, etc.

Mandatory chess? That's insane.

PE is mandatory too, you know...

I don't think chess should be in the curriculum. School can ruin many things students would otherwise find interesting. Schools are the reason why many adults shy away from numbers, and why literature is not a favourite past time.

There is a school in Portugal, that just a few years ago started to teach chess as "mandatory" it is named "31 de Janeiro" located in Parede Portuga, they must be doing something right since they are now Fide world champs in U-10 and both the teachers and parents are quite happy about it and say everyschool should have it. They refer to the interest demonstrated by the pupils on both chess itself and the other curriculum activity's. If it works for them, it would work for others too, its just hard/expensive to start, but if you think about it what would be better. have your kids learning chess, or getting the school to rent a bus to be able to take your kids to the beach during the summer? Or tenis class, football, or some other sport schools offer to our kids. Obviously every sport as its advantages, but very few or even none offer so much benefits as chess does!

LINK

I think chess should offered as an elective

Chess is the only game alowed at my school. It was brought up with the principle and they got it approved. Now i play chess at school every day.

I have coached kids at chess and I love the game, but I'm not at all sure it should be part of a school curriculum.  Chess should come because you love the game, not because of school.  Before I taught kids chess, I'd teach them something more useful, like how to change a tire or play a musical instrument.

Anyway you'll meet more girls playing guitar thean chess...

Sorry, that was so male of me to say...

i dont think it should be a class or elective just an after school club

not schools in general that would be great! It as to do with academics in the sense both the parents and teachers are happy with the experience over this years probably because it really is good, the kids are more focused and interested in school and also chess, they get to travel to other countries and be world champs what more could someone want?

Well, from my expirience the problem with PE is that okay, you'll force the kids to move for a few hours a week (at the high price of bullying I may add), but the fact that it's forced means most kids won't continue with it once they leave school. It becomes just like Chemistry, endure it for the years, and then never ever do it again.

And I'm worried that chess would suffer the same fate. It'd be a class, nothing more. Never to be pursued once you can avoid it.

And how much time of students do you think should be reserved for chess? And can you make a beginner's game time-bound?

2 or 3 hours weekly, they won't be pkaying real chess, they will be learning the basis like how to move the pieces, checkmate with two rooks, queen, the configuration of the board and for the older students they can learn advanced rules and ideas like castle, en passant. If very good at it they can try the opposition.

a number of my students are regulars on chess.com they enjoy the competition

Why should chess be considered eligible as part of curriculum and not rest of the games?

Because it works better and brings far more benefits then most sports. And as for other sporst they are mandattory sports like basketball soccer etc, besides team work and maybe some strategy envolved can't see any real benefict in any of those...