A Curriculum Guide for Scholastic Chess by David MacEnulty - USCF (1998)

Source: http://www.schoolchess.com/download/school%20chess%20curriculum%20guide.pdf About the Author Six years ago David MacEnulty became the first full-time New York City public school teacher to teach chess as an academic subject. Working in a large elementary school in the South Bronx, his team has won first place trophies at the New York City Scholastic Chess Tournament for four consecutive years, and is one of the top five elementary chess teams in the nation. From 1994 to 1997, his students won more than 500 individual and team trophies. These achievements are made all the more remarkable by the fact that his school, Community Elementary School 70, is located in the poorest Congressional District in the country, and its children come from the two highest crime precincts in the Bronx. David began his chess teaching career with Chess-in-the-Schools, a non-profit foundation that sends chess teachers to schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods. He has also taught children at the Manhattan Chess Club, the New York Athletic Club, and worked in after school programs at several public and private New York City Schools. For the past four years, he has enjoyed teaching at the Brownell-Talbot Summer Chess Camp in Omaha. David has also produced two videotapes of chess instruction featuring Bruce Pandolfini, and appears in one of his own aimed at beginning players entitled Chess For Children. In addition, he is just completing a series of instructional books for beginners to go with the Chess for Children Videotape series. His booklet, The Scholastic Tournament Book, was written as a guide for parents who are just embarking on the sometimes chaotic ride through the scholastic chess tournament experience. David’s extraordinary work with his Bronx chess team has been regularly recognized and applauded by the media both inside and outside the chess world. He has been featured on several television shows, including CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood and CNN News, in addition to numerous newspaper articles. Most recently, he was named the U.S.C.F. Coach of the Month for March, ’98. Among his favorite chess sayings to elementary school students are, “Look at three or four ideas before choosing one,” and “If you don’t know where every piece is and what each can do, you aren’t ready for your next move.” A strong believer in basic technique, he constantly reviews opening principles, tactics, pawn structure, checkmate patterns, and endgame ideas with his team. “A player’s creativity suffers if technique is lacking. Since a lot of chess thinking is reasoning by analogy, I want to build a solid foundation of essential information the students can use in their analytical reasoning. I don’t want to develop a lot of young players who just memorize variations. I want them to know the ‘why’ of every move they see. That way, if their opponent makes a weak move, they can come up with a good response. Or if their opponent surprises them with an opening we haven’t worked on, they can apply the basic principles, and usually come out all right. Does it always work? Of course not! Some of these kids are only in first or second grade. Does it work more often that not? You bet it does.” Another of his strong beliefs about scholastic chess is sportsmanship: “I teach the children to respect everyone. Being a better chess player doesn’t make you a better person. And if someone has just beaten you, shake their hand and congratulate them. They just did something pretty special: they beat you. You have to show respect for that, or what are you saying about yourself? It may hurt inside, but that doesn’t give you the right to be rude.” ...