By Peter Nwabueze
Chess, a fast-paced decision-making game, is a significant way to empower children with the needed decision-making skills to face life, the Vice Principal, Academics, Christabel Schools, Augustine Akhigbe, has said.
Mr Akhigbe said there are so many things people battle, and are always at crossroads where they think of which decision to take and which would be the best for them.
He said: “A child who plays chess is already accustomed to making real-time decisions. Chess also helps children to focus. Yes, because for you to play it, you need to concentrate, you need to focus, and, indirectly, you are developing your focusing skills. So, you see them being able to concentrate on what they are doing.
“It is also used as therapy for very restless children. They help them play chess and before you know it, they become very calm”.
Mr Akhighe said if a child plays chess very early, there is a tendency for the child to develop certain amazing skills. “It helps children, even in their academics, yes. And it has nothing to do with age. You can see someone in Grade 1 winning someone in Grade 6, or JS 3. It doesn’t matter. It’s about your ability to make the best decisions at every point in time.”
He advised that students should start learning the game as early as possible, especially at age four or five. “In Western countries, they make sure that children are exposed to these things very early. Anything they want them to do, they expose it to them very early because the brain neurones are still easy to adapt.”
“By the time you are 13, 14, you are already a champion, which is why abroad, you have players who are just teenagers beating champions who have played for about 15 years because their brains have already been programmed for it.”
The educationist said that at Christabel schools, students start playing the game from Nursery 2, which is when they are about four to five years old. He also highlighted that it is a curricular event and not just a club, as it concerns everyone.
“All of them are exposed to it, and it is helping the children,” he said.
Chess competition
To further highlight the importance of the game to learners, Christabel Schools holds a chess competition yearly. Eleven schools from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) participated in the event last year.
“We are holding the competition to provide an avenue for learners across the FCT to have an opportunity to play. Some people came from Gwagwalada and Karu. We made sure that everybody we distributed letters to could have an avenue to play the game. Yes, they can play in their schools, and at their clubs, but they don’t have an avenue for competitions like this to showcase what they know, that is why we are holding this competition,” Mr Akhigbe said at the competition last year.
Some children may not be so good academically, but when it comes to chess, they are very, very good. So it’s a way of promoting the psychomotor skills of those types of learners, he highlighted.
“We have a boy, academically, he may not be the best, he may be an average learner, but when it came to playing chess, he was a champion in his class. The competition is to help promote the children across the board. As a school, we do not play with anything that can make our children global leaders.
“The chess competition is going to be an annual event, where we’ll bring learners together, and the awards will be bigger and better. We are also looking to have sponsorship so that it would be a grand annual event,” Mr Akhigbe said.
To John Momoh, a teacher at Care and Cuddles Schools, Jahi, Abuja, chess is a game that enhances the brain, with regard to thinking capability. It’s a game that one has to be strategic about.
“It’s a huge investment in a child, that is why, as a school, we let them play it, to enhance their thinking capacity. For us, it mustn’t always be about winning. It’s all about the exposure. When you expose yourself to see those better than you in a game, you learn from them.
“For parents who still think chess is a backward movement, I advise that they rethink that decision and see the benefits of playing chess, rather than seeing it as time wasting, except they want their children to be limited or backward, in this age and time,” Mr Momoh said at the competition last year.
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Meanwhile, this year’s competition will be held on 23 November for the primary, junior and senior secondary school categories, at the school’s compound in Wuye, FCT.
Chess not measurement of intelligence
Ifeanyi Uddin, a chess player, however, said though a good game, chess does not necessarily indicate intelligence, and students should be made to understand this, at the early stage.
“It’s just an arm of intelligence. The ability to play chess is just one arm of intelligence and not all of it. Chess is teachable. When you play chess, because of the combinations of its moves, you anticipate the moves of your opponent. So, if you anticipate six to eight moves, you have an advantage,” Mr Uddin said.
According to Mr Uddin, chess is great, but players tend to let that get into their heads. “If they do, it could ruin their life. It led to some brilliant players not completing school. Players must understand that the winner is not necessarily smarter. If I lost to you does not mean you are smarter.”
“It’s a game like every other game. It’s just like Ayo, hence they shouldn’t let it get into their heads. It’s tasking mentally, no doubt, and you need to be bright, to play chess, but it doesn’t mean that you are brighter than the person who doesn’t,” he added.
He highlighted that the danger is that it misleads people as the primary indicator of being smart. “It’s just like solving mathematics. If we are encouraging chess clubs for learners, we might as well encourage reading and writing clubs.”
Mr Uddin, who, in the 80s, walked long distances just to play chess, also highlighted that just as in other games, chess tends to portray players as evil or wicked, because they have to plan their opponent’s move, to the letter, to win.
He said: “After a while, you realise chess is a very interesting game. Chess requires that you say ‘If you push it, I must eat it’. Your opponent starts a move and you have thought of about 16 steps you are going to make,” making it seem to a beginner that the game is a painstakingly wicked one.
“I would recommend it. So long as the children know that it is a game, like every other. They shouldn’t feel like it’s a special game. We tend to make it as a mark of superior intelligence, and it’s not true.”