JAMES Infiesto is a National Arbiter in the Philippines and one of the invited players in the 2nd Ambassador Marino Cup (Palau Invitational Chess Championship).
He didn't make it but still continues his sharing of knowledge to Roberto Hernandez through emails.
THE FOLLOWING IS HIS INFORMATIVE EMAIL:
National Chess Federation of the Philippines Prospero 'Butch' Pichay, Jr. hailed the move of Education Secretary Jesli Lapus to finally integrate chess in the grade school and high school curriculum starting this coming school year.
This will be a golden opportunity to develop new talents like 15-year-old prodigy Grandmaster Wesley So and catapult Philippines in world chess supremacy.
Please see below facts helpful on why I kept on campaigning that chess is a learning tool for Science, Math, Arts and subjects that deal with logical reasoning.
Facts:
In a Texas study, regular (non-honors) elementary students who participated in a school chess club showed twice the improvement on non-chess players in Reading and Mathematics between 3rd and 5th grades on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills.
A New Brunswick, Canada study, using 437 fifth graders split into 3 groups, experimenting with the addition of chess to the math curriculum, found increased gain in math problem-solving and comprehension proportionate to the amount of chess in the curriculum.
The Venezuela "Learning To Think Project", which trained 100,000 teachers to teach thinking skills, and which involved a sample of 4,266 2nd grade students, reached a general conclusion that chess, methodically taught, is an incentive system sufficient to accelerate the increase IQ in elementary age children of both sexes at all socio-economic levels.
Chess is found as required curricula in nearly 30 countries.
The mathematics curriculum in New Brunswick, Canada is a text series called "Challenging Mathematics" which uses chess to teach logic from grades 2 to 7.
Using this curriculum, the average problem-solving score of pupils in the province increased from 62% to 81%.
The province of Quebec, where the program was first introduced, has the best math marks in Canada and Canada scores better than the USA on international mathematics exam.
Former U. S. Secretary of Education Terrell Bell encourages knowledge of chess as a way to develop a preschooler's intellect and academic readiness.
The state of New Jersey passed a bill legitimizing chess as a unit of instruction within the elementary school curriculum.
A quote from the bill states "In countries where chess is offered widely in schools, students exhibit excellence in the ability to recognize complex patterns and consequently excel in math and science..."
I am happy that Chess has been finally recognized in the Philippines as a tool to equip the youth, making the right decisions in life by enhancing their logical thinking.
This pave way also for employment for chess players who can never let go of wood pushing because of the love of the sport.
At the end of the day, as parents, we ask ourselves what will be the benefits of the sport our children are into.
Career wise, chess is one of the basic foundation of my creative thinking in my magic presentations.
Anticipate the reactions of your audience, just like playing chess, anticipate and analyze the moves of your opponent.
Hope you can accommodate. James
Source: Chessmate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Pages 13 & 15
Volume 18
Issue 05
February 02-08, 2009
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