Middle Schoolers Battle in Chess Tournament
 | Author:
Nancy Marks, MT43 News Reporter
Nancy Marks: MT43 News Secretary and News Editor |
Nancy Marks
MT43 News Reporter
Chess is a game that takes great concentration and quiet surroundings. Quiet surroundings were not the case Thursday when the annual Townsend Middle School chess tournament took place in the high school gym.
The entire classes of seventh and eighth graders were on hand to hoot, holler and clap as their classmates appeared as rooks, pawns, knights, bishops, queens and kings. The chess board was a carefully laid out square the size of a garage floor.
Middle school math teacher Gary Bauman has taught chess to middle schoolers for many years, “at least twenty,” he said. He said the idea came from kids who were reading or watching the Harry Potter Sorcerer’s Stone tale, which featured a life-sized chess match.
Bauman said he teaches chess just before Christmas break, then when the students return, those who are interested practice chess during their noon hour from January to March to get ready for the tournament.
Bauman has a method to his chess game madness. “I use chess in the classroom to give kids a chance to improve their problem-solving skills,” he explained. He said studies have shown there is a direct correlation between playing chess and performance in the classroom. Bauman uses the tool as something students can do when they finish their work. He said at the end of most class periods there are one or two games being played. Twenty-eight seventh graders and twenty-four eighth graders participated over the three-month period.
Winners of the eighth-grade class were Reese Wright, Ava Boaz, and Konnor Swan, while Alex Weiss, Isaac Brakefield and Lucas Davies were the seventh-grade winners. Reese Wright went on to win the tourney championship.
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PhotoCredit: Nancy Marks Photo
Image 1 Caption: Chess game on between the 8th grade, white team and the 7th grade, black team at the gym last Thursday.
Nancy Marks Photo
Image 2 Caption: Seventh grade players prepare for competition with eighth graders in a wild game of chess.
Nancy Marks Photo
