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Learning across the board

Go and Chess clubs stimulate youth

STORY AND PHOTO BY ETHAN GOFFMAN

Although intelligence is a mystery, those same indefinable qualities that enable every child to learn to speak, that are developed through writing and mathematics, are also used in play and competition.

This belief is embodied in the games organizations spreading across the Silver Spring/Takoma Park area–a kind of neural network whose primary nodes are the area's schools and community centers.

Two local organizers and game teachers, Fernando Moreno and John Goon, are proving that any student can unlock the mysteries of Chess and Go, ancient games associated with the realm of pure thought and often considered the province of only a few extraordinary children. These teachers are providing new opportunities for kids to come together in a competition–or is it a dance?–that stimulates learning.

Playing games of strategy have also been shown to have academic benefits, such as raising test scores in math and reading, and may enhance social development as well. These games cross national, racial, and economic lines, underscoring that human intelligence lies in infinite locations, too often remaining untapped.

A journey across national lines marked the passage of a chess ambassador into Montgomery County. In 1987, having freshly obtained a degree in psychology in his native Madrid, Spain, Moreno traveled to Washington D.C. to visit his brother. He planned to stay for a month, but seeing the need for bilingual mental health workers in the area, he volunteered for area agencies and, eventually, decided to stay. He began by working for the DC Public Schools, and for the past seven years Moreno has been a bilingual counselor in the Montgomery County Public Schools ESOL office.

Inspired by the story of a New York inner city chess team that won a national championship, Moreno began to develop his views on chess as a tool for academic achievement. Moreno has since traveled throughout area schools, giving workshops on the educational uses of chess. His programs have expanded steadily; he now sponsors Chess for Success at Summer Delights, the Takoma Park ice cream shop. This fall he is beginning a similar program in Blair High School.

Unlike most chess programs, Moreno's approach emphasizes the game's social side, using it to reach kids of all backgrounds. His book Teaching Life Skills Through Chess explains that teachers and mentors can "use the game to help students, youth and parents grow."

His basic premise, to use chess as a metaphor for life, assumes that the situations encountered in chess are similar to those faced in daily life. He explains that, in both chess and life, individuals find themselves confronted with "a specific position, where you have to make a decision to increase your chances to have a better game. These examples of thinking skills will allow transfer to real life."

He applies their lessons to such varied situations as learning to avoid a fight, to consider the consequences of drugs, and to plan for one's education.

People may come from different backgrounds and speak different languages, but they share the language of the chessboard. Moreno encourages players to bring chess sets from their home countries–say, a Salvadoran set taking on a Chinese set–and experience cultural identification, and diversity, across a common board.

"At the end," he explains, "it's important to know that everybody inside is the same, and to win and to play you have the same thing."

Goon, too, emphasizes the ways that strategy games cross social and cultural lines. For instance, he believes that Go has given the many African-American kids with whom he's worked "a different mindset about Asian culture."

Despite his Chinese heritage, Goon did not grow up playing Go, although he enjoyed both chess and bridge.

"I had no idea that Go even existed. Go was a game played by the Chinese elite, so my poor parents did not have this upbringing and knowledge to share with their children."

Twenty-six years ago he received a Go set as a birthday present, but this languished on a shelf until he met veteran players who showed him "a true glimpse of the game's profound nature."

Intrigued by the strategic aspects of Go, he became engrossed in the minutiae of competitive play. In 1999 his direction changed once again, when a work colleague at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory asked him, "Aren't you a native Washingtonian? Aren't you interested in giving back to the community?"

Those words stuck with Goon. "[They] became very clear and powerful long-range goals that now guide our present regional effort."

That effort began with the creation of the Rockville Go Club and has spread to include four clubs throughout Montgomery County.

Goon admits that chess organizations are far more advanced than Go clubs in terms of promoting their game's educational aspects: "Chess has been most vocal in saying, ‘play Chess, it's good for you.'"

Chess also has substantial research supporting its educational benefits. Goon considers Go a more intuitive and flexible game, however, and the ethic of Go, too, is open to handicaps that allow players of differing skill levels to enjoy playing each other. And while the culture of chess is highly competitive, Goon believes that Go players more enjoy the flow of the game regardless of who wins:

"It's less of a game and more of a partnership," he says. "Not a conflict–more of a dance."

Perhaps because Go calls for flexibility, Goon is flexible in his approach. His clubs are not exclusively devoted to Go. They also feature Chess as well as a variety of other strategy games, including Magic, a card game of mystical conflict that has enjoyed great popularity among youth in the last few years. He also teaches Carcassone, one of a number of games imported from Germany, a country that takes its game playing seriously and has recently exported such innovative titles as the Settlers of Catan and Puerto Rico.

"Not everybody is interested in the same games, so we give kids as much choice as possible, putting before them games of quality," he says.

On any given day, across Chess and Go boards, there will be winners and losers. If played and taught in the right spirit, however, these games produce only winners.

For more information on game clubs, contact John Goon at jgoon@erols.com or 301-394-4288, or contact Fernando Moreno at Fernando_Moreno@fc.mcps.k12.md.us or 301-431-0062.