Armenia Makes Chess Compulsory In Schools 300
Hugh Pickens writes "AFP News reports that chess will become a required subject in primary schools in Armenia, where children from the age of six will learn chess as a separate subject on the curriculum for two hours a week. The lessons, which start later this year, will 'foster schoolchildren's intellectual development' and teach them to 'think flexibly and wisely', says Arman Aivazian, an official at the Ministry of Education. President Serzh Sarkisian, an enthusiastic supporter of the game, has committed around $1.5 million to the scheme in a move to turn the country of 3.2 million people into a global force in the games, says Aivazian. 'Teaching chess in schools will create a solid basis for the country to become a chess superpower.' Armenia's national team won gold at the biennial International Chess Olympiad in both 2006 and 2008, and the country's top player, Levon Aronian, is currently ranked number three in the world."
Brilliant! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, though, this is an intriguing way of fostering logical/analytical/creative thinking. I wonder if there is any peer reviewed literature on the impact of chess on children?
Re:Brilliant! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. I'd be interested to know if maybe some Battle for Wesnoth or Nethack might produce some results too, especially considering some pupils might find playing those more enjoyable.
(And there would of course be plenty of other examples aswell.)
If I was the supreme principal of the land, I'd draw up goals regarding logic and whatnot that the chess-playing is desired to accomplish and have teachers and kids find the most suitable game for each. I don't think chess can be the best fit for everyone.
Re:Brilliant! (Score:2, Insightful)
>find the most suitable game for each kid.
FTFM
Re:This is genius (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you realise the irony in complaining that schools aren't competitive enough, while simultaneously complaining that people are competing to be that 1 in a billion athelete?
We don't need competition. Competition tells you if you're not the best, you're a worthless loser. We don't need a hundred confident competitive giants and a million suicidal losers. What you need is to make the learning itself worthwhile.
Re:This is genius (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Meanwhile in the USA... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is genius (Score:5, Insightful)
Except if you are -very- competetive about athletics, you don't have time for properly learning all the rest (but being a promising athlete helps to pass).
You're just barely getting by, and in the end you are not competent in your learned work field. You're extremely competetive though, so you do get to a higher (managemental) position than the nerds who didn't compete at sports and learned their job instead.
And that's the image of your current corporate structure. Highly competetive, aggressive, and utterly incompetent jerks are the managers, meanwhile talented experts stay at the bottom, because not being very competetive doesn't fit the image of a "person deserving a success" for the managers, who, after all, fought tooth and nail for their positions.
Yes, it's true there is a lot of jobs which are easier to get if you have all the competetive skills. It's easier to get a better-paying job that way. It's definitely profitable to the person in question. It's just utterly harmful to the whole system.
Re:Brilliant! (Score:4, Insightful)
You're forgetting this is Armenia.
A mass-produced chessboard with a set of pieces is like $0.30 imported in bulk from China.
Getting a computer capable of running Battle for Wesnoth may be beyond capabilities of most schools, and even if they have a computer lab, it is likely occupied most of the time by IT classes, simply no time to occupy it for another 2h a week for each group. And funding another computer lab just for playing nethack...?
Poker -- Randomness and Partial Information (Score:4, Insightful)
If there's any game I would want required for students it would be: Poker. (I say this, having been weaned on chess as a kid, and having won a competition in high school.) The problem with chess is at least twofold, in that it has both (a) full information, and (b) no randomness, a bad model for real-world applications, which will not present themselves that way. I'd rather have people playing poker and dealing with (a) probability, (b) partial information, (c) logic and deduction, (d) psychology and reading people, (e) betting and expected values, etc.
The last test I gave in a community college stats class had this question: "True or false: If I roll a fair die 36 times, a one will come up 6 times." Almost everyone in the class said "true". Afterward, I had one of my better students remark with surprise, "So it's not certain?" I'd love to not have to introduce the very idea of probability to students for the first time when they're sophomores in college.