Even the most learned of folks fail to describe chess fully, categorising it either as a sport, art or a field of science, but what holds true across the spectrum is the fact that Chess is intellectually stimulating and serves as the gymnasium for the mind. This has led to the widespread misconception that chess is strictly meant for geniuses and gifted. However, the reverse has been proved to be true by the scientists and educationalists around the world - Geniuses can be made through chess. It is recognised in inculcating discipline, objectivity, assiduity, concentration, visualisation skills, patience and strategic thinking.
Chess has its roots in the sumptuous soils of India, yet somehow Russians have dominated the world chess game for years. The reason is simple : Early education in chess has been compulsory for Russian students for decades now. Celebrated Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget theorised that between the ages of 11 and 15, a child develops the ability to think about abstract concepts, developing a knack for metacognition, hypothesizing and deduction. However, he went on to contend that this development is not common among all children of this age-group, as this largely depends upon their environment.
The dynamic nature of real-life problems, advent of artificial intelligence, and the mechanisation of traditional job roles, has made traditional educational methods obsolete. Rote learning has been accused time and again in popular culture and academics for its ineffectiveness in delivering any real quality education, yet it still manages to engulf the country’s educational system. The young minds should not be limited to just cramming of factual information like formulas of a chemical compound or the name of the president, but they should be someone with strong intellect, enhanced cognitive skills and having a penchant for logical and rational problem solving. When the world is nearing the eventual split between creators and consumers, Chess can serve as the ultimate bridge to reach out to the latent abilities that have not been reached by in-place educational techniques.
Cognitive development
The game of chess has an unparalleled competence in training a player’s mind to be cognisant of minute details and infer complex placement patterns. A dutch scholar and psychologist, Adrian de Groot, noted that a Grandmaster’s memory skills were no superior to any novice chess player, however a Grandmaster was able to comprehend a convoluted chess configuration in a matter of seconds and determine on a successful move, displaying superlative cognitive skills at work. The player then goes on to learn to differentiate important aspects from the plethora of unimportant ones. Such conditioning is portable in real life decision making. For example, a student who plays chess can easily separate important information in a chapter at hand and study more efficiently. He or she will also be able to give emphasis to minute details in the study material which others might skip, since a chess player has acquired a crucial skill of observance.
Do-It-Yourself
In human psychology “operant conditioning” or “instrumental conditioning” entails that a pupil executes or implements an action based on the stimuli presented to him or her and this facilitates learning. In the traditional education system, a student hardly ever gets an opportunity to actually implement what was learnt in theory, and this serves as negative reinforcement hindering any further interest in the topic. This is the very reason children shy away from STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) learning, which can only be effectively imbibed by learning-by-doing or Do-It-Yourself techniques. Playing chess motivates students to seek opportunities to observe, analyse and implement what is learnt in real life problem solving. It serves as a positive reinforcement mechanism for the players where a move based on the rules, game analysis, real-time observations and personal judgment, is reciprocated with an instant result in the form of the opponent's reply.