With Japan undergoing a potential nuclear meltdown and President Obama defending US intervention in Libya, there should be no shortage of news material.
Nonetheless, USA Today, America's shining example of weekday journalism, recapitulated an article from 2009 on page 3 of its front section yesterday (3/29/11).
According to the piece, educators are using chess as a tool to teach strategy, problem-solving and social skills. It highlights a Washington state organization, First Move, which launched in 2004, and in a recent year brought chess to 50,000 students in nearly 2,000 classrooms across 27 states.
The article also cites research suggesting that student chess participants scored "significantly higher on reading tests than a control group" in a 1993 New York study. (Many other similar studies abound).
The well-known academic Dr. Alexey Root is quoted: "For some children this is a way to express their intelligence." She suggests chess is a powerful learning tool, "You see lines of force and manipulate things in your mind's eye."
And teachers, some of whom had never played chess before, "like the opportunity to build their repertoire of skills".
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