With my wife, Irma, a fourth grade teacher who is learning chess!
It isn’t easy to put it in a nutshell (but I’ll try!). Sharing about the art of chess brings out an enthusiasm for guiding, demystifying, admiring, learning, camaraderie, insight into human nature and a thousand other things. Besides, the teacher always appears when the student is ready so I can’t let all those students down! Chess teaches life skills, thus as a person who wants to learn and grow and help others do the same, I have found that chess can be my way to make a positive difference. In fact, parallels with life are occasionally drawn to explain a chess concept during a lesson (many chess skills are universal-see Ben Franklin’s essay, below). I previously worked as a biochemist in San Diego’s Biotech industry for about 13 years.
-Mario Amodeo, October 25, 2009
Here’s part of what Benjamin Franklin wrote in his essay, “The Morals of Chess”:
“The game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened by it, so as to become habits, ready on all occasions. We may learn foresight…, circumspection…, caution… and lastly, we learn by chess the habit of not being discouraged by present bad appearances in the state of our affairs, and that of persevering in the search for resources.”
So how about posting a comment below why you love playing chess or sharing what you have learned about life from chess?