National Chess News

School using chess to develop critical thinking skills

By Ann Work
Times Record News
November 4, 2003

When Sam Houston Elementary students walked into the 2003 state chess tournament in Fort Worth, Principal Omar Montemayor watched parents point and whisper.

"There's the chess powerhouse from Wichita Falls," they were saying.

Montemayor made a strategic move when he brought chess to Sam Houston.

After just five years, the team plays so well that it recently won the 2003 regional tournament in its division.

When the team advanced to the 2003 state tournament, Sam Houston students were the only North Texas team to nab a top-15 spot in their division. Every other spot fell to teams from the high-spending Brownsville Independent School District, which allots $100,000 annually to its chess programs.

Sam Houston budgets just $1,000.

And 85 percent of the school's students are classified "low-income."

The school has turned the strategy-heavy game into a focus that's taken hold in the neighborhood school nestled on 2500 Grant. It's almost like a magnet program - without the millions of federal dollars that accompany such a program.

Eight other Wichita Falls elementary schools actually have federally funded themes - called magnets - spurred by millions of federal dollars that bring a special educational focus to learning. But Sam Houston, without any federal funds or magnet theme to call its own, created its own in chess.

"We meet every Friday," said Montemayor of the 50 to 80 students in all grades who play in the school's Chess Club. "We are beginning to make it part of the curriculum. It's not something they go and play once a week. It's something we're putting in front of them every day."

Chessboards and game pieces are displayed throughout the school, just as magnet themes brand other schools with a particular focus.

This passion for chess all started when Montemayor's son, Paul, took up the game and went on to become a fourth-grade state champion.

"He started playing when he was in kindergarten," Montemayor recalls. "His attention span in kindergarten ran from five to 10 minutes. By fourth grade, he'd play games that were over an hour-and-a-half long. Once I started seeing that, I brought chess to every school that I taught."

Montemayor started chess clubs at Kirby Junior High School, then at Sheppard Elementary and again at Denver Alternative Center when he was an assistant principal there.

Then he became the principal at Sam Houston in 1998.

"I started a chess program as soon as I came here," he said.

Failing to help the teachers learn - really learn - the game was his one downfall, Montemayor said. "The only thing I didn't do correctly is give the teachers enough time to understand the game," he says now.

But he's working on that. Now, in every faculty meeting, teachers play 15 minutes of chess.

Meanwhile, Sam Houston students have booted out Brownsville ISD from the ninth spot in their division while developing their own critical thinking skills.

Sam Houston parent Wes Roy said he's seen it happen to his son, Heath, 10, and daughter, Cayleene, 8.

"It makes them think of different ways of doing things," Roy said. "There's always two or three ways to do things. They've got to figure out the best way to get to the ends you want."

That makes it a life skill, he said.

Kevin Gonzalez, 11, participates in Sam Houston's tournaments. "It's fun, and whenever you win you get a feeling like you just want to rag it in their face," he said.

But it's work, too, he said. "Whenever you try to master the move or you try to (do) the best you can, the hardest thing in a tournament is to have fun," Gonzalez said.

Carlos Gonzalez accompanied his son to the recent state chess tournament in Fort Worth and recalls the moment he walked into the cavernous hall set up with hundreds of chessboards surrounded by concentrating children.

"Man, this is a big thing," Carlos said to himself. "I'd never seen so many kids together playing chess."

Cheerleading parent Roy has already penciled the next regional chess competition into his February calendar and the Pittsburgh, Pa., National Elementary Chess Championships onto his March calendar.

"That gives us something to look forward to," Roy said.

The trip will be the school's first to a national tournament, where Sam Houston will compete against the top teams in the nation.

2003© The E.W. Scripps Co.