My first day as a chess teacher

[trenton]

For my first lessons, I was shadowing with a couple of other chess teachers. For these lessons I went to Holy Family. I dropped my keys in the car and didn't notice until later, so I was a little concerned through the day.

I entered the school and went to the office first. I played some chess games while waiting. I went to class with Ian, the first instructor. He reviewed castling and an passant as well as basic strategy. He told the students to try to develop their knights and bishops within 10 moves.

I rarely follow this rule myself. I played one student and I found all kinds of tactical opportunities and took over the board with developing all the pieces. I often seem like a hypocrite to beginners. In fact, I am using more nuanced strategic principles. After the game I walked through the moves with the student and explained my thinking. My students find it very interesting and educational when I explain the nuances behind more advanced chess strategy.

One student was happy and tried to answer a lot of questions. I called him "champ in the making." I recognized him in the hallway and gave him a thumbs up as he laughed.

In the second room, Ian used the same teaching method as before. I decided to add something. While he was discussing castling, I used a real game example to demonstrate opposite side castling and how to do it on both wings. I used the Sicilian najdorf and followed the grandmaster moves until I could reach a position that demonstrates castling on either wing. It was pretty instructive. After that I just walked around the room and watched the students. It gets boring without a game, so I like having an odd number of students. I feel like I can teach more effectively through concrete examples, but there is a specific curriculum to follow. I am sometimes limited in what I can teach because some students don't know the legal moves yet.

In the third and fourth room, I went with Evan. He used a chess puzzle as a warm up, but none of the students were able to find the queen sacrifice. I decided to walk the students through the thinking methods for solving chess puzzles. The grandmasters look at checks, captures, and threats. I explained the calculation process with other variations and how to find the win. The students seemed much more enthusiastic after I explained the thinking methods for solving chess puzzles and finding mating combinations. it also simplifies the thinking process because there are fewer moves to consider and it helps to understand which moves are relevant and irrelevant. Evan told the rest of the chess program that I was an ace.

The next class was for sixth graders. They were not interested in playing. After getting them settled I played with one girl who said she was tired. I discovered a better teaching method while playing. I played my best in the opening and middle game. Normally, I would just finish them off and then discuss my thought process while walking back through the game. This time I gave her the piece back to transpose to an instructive endgame. She was winning, but I wanted her to figure out the technique. After further analysis she eventually found a way to make progress. I did my best to put up resistance, resulting in both sides getting another queen. Eventually she traded the queen and used the final pawn to reach a king and queen against king ending. We didn't have time to discuss the technique in much depth because we had to go. She seemed happy though.

Before going to lunch the students prayed. I went to lunch with Ian at a Mexican restaurant. He was frustrated with the sixth graders because it is hard to get them to focus. Sometimes older kids use the computers to look at inappropriate content, so he has to watch them more carefully if They have a computer. the students do not appreciate that they could be studying religion instead, but they just can't focus on chess. While eating the restaurant over charged me, so I corrected them to 10 dollars instead of 12.

Finally, we started teaching third graders. They were much more enthusiastic. A bunch of them wanted to go to a chess tournament in the Paul Brown stadium. No opponents this time, but I did help one of the kids with the checkmating technique. A lot of beginner games and with chasing the opponent king around the board and being unable to mate him. I would like some of my lessons to be focused on this technique, so these games can end sooner.

I played two games against the chess instructor. The thing is that as you get stronger, the chess principles can really start to limit you sometimes, especially if they become a thoughtless habit. I break the beginner principles all the time because chess often boils down to concrete calculation. I look for tactical opportunities and exploit them in anyway I can.

In the first game, I was a horrible example for beginners again. I won by moving out my queen early and grabbing pawns across multiple moves. I never developed either of my knights, and that's how I beat the chess instructor. Remember kids, attack only with your queen and don't develop your other pieces! The reality is that I moved my queen out like this because of my opponent's mistake of moving the f pawn prematurely. If not for his mistakes, I would not have had an opportunity to break the principles further in my favor. 

A chess principle on its own is almost meaningless if it is not reinforced through concrete analysis. If I apply this thinking to life in general, then I could say that rules, paradigms, or assertions about how life is are weak if they are reinforced by specific context. This is why our court system rules on a case by case basis. context and details must be accounted for as the world becomes very gray rather than black and white.

my main concern about this position is that I am often limited in what I can teach. For example, emotional mastery is important for playing better chess, but it is a huge topic. Emotional mastery should be its own subject in schools as well. In any case, I should be more interesting than the other instructors. I noticed that the lessons felt monotonous at times, it they were usually short before we started playing. I would prefer more in depth lectures while explaining the thinking methods and nuanced behind the strategy. It won't be too long and they will still play a game, but I have a lot more to offer.

[Consept]

Do you wanna do a couple practice lessons with me? I'm around 1500 rated on chess.com but I haven't formally learnt any principles, so I'm up for however you want to teach that will improve me 

[trenton]

@Consept

I think I will just make YouTube videos while I'm off. This way I don't have to repeat a lot of my lessons to individual people. Maybe if I make a video I will post it on this forum later.

I have many ideas in mind.

[trenton]

@Consept I have made my first YouTube video for chess lessons.

This is about common thinking errors in human thought and how it can be applied to chess, chess culture, and how you get stuck and stagnate. I hope this lessons opens doors you previously did not know about.

[Consept]

@trenton

Nice, ill check it out. I was on lichess before and had around 1800 rating which was a lot more than my chess.com, what do you think is more accurate?

[trenton]

@Consept chess.com is closer to the USCF rating. Lichess is inflated.

[trenton]

I just finished my lesson in pleasant ridge school.

I set up a game against a computer and have the students candidate moves to work with. Apart from a few disagreements it was fine. The students were engaged and they were happy to help pick out the way forward.

One disagreement came up when we were up two pieces against the computer and had multiple ways to win. I suggested a move that I knew was not objectively best, but was a practical choice to simplify the position to a winning endgame. Most of the disagreements start when there are multiple winning methods. The second one is when some students noticed my rook was hanging, but I ignored it and  went straight for checkmate anyway.

There are a couple of students who are confused about the knight moves. I might prepare a lesson for knight maneuvers so that I cover the legal moves for beginners, but also a challenge for more advanced players with finding the right route for the knight.

[universe]

Enjoyed that reading

3 hours ago, trenton said:

There are a couple of students who are confused about the knight moves.

Which knight moves?

 

Why did you decide to teach chess, is that your LP?

[trenton]

@universe I mean the legal knight moves. Beginners commonly struggle with this.

As for teaching chess I enjoy it and I like it much more than my main job. The reason I felt lost in college is because there was no option to become a chess teacher which would have made it easy to decide.

My life's work is a little deeper than just the surface of teaching chess. There is more I could add to that later.

[universe]

Ah I see, thought you where still talking about the game you played against the computer.

Sounds good, could be something to build on.

[BlessedLion]

Nice!

[kag101]

if you teach in schools, it’ll always boil down to really beginner stuff. 

 it seems that your passion is to teach the nuances of chess, and not how the knights move.

have you ever given private classes? Maybe this way you’d be able to get more motivated and higher rated students