Many students enjoy playing chess with their friends at the high school, but this isn’t the best thing to do sometimes. Students can’t even play chess with their friends during class without getting into trouble. To stop this from happening, and to keep students focused in class, an AAHS chess club must be created.
This has already been done in the middle school for the past few years. There has been great success too with dozens of students showing up every week just to play chess.
Everyone is welcome, no matter their skill level. Someone could be the best of the best or a stranger to chess and people would still let them into the club.
Even though hundreds of students and some teachers like playing chess, there is still no chess club. This needs to change, and people need to be able to go somewhere specifically to play chess. Without one, people have no place to refine their skills or just to casually play chess with each other.
A small group of freshmen is already trying to fix this though. With about 12 members, the group has been trying to create its chess club. They haven’t been successful though, but many of them still get together and play chess during class when they have free time.
Most of the people from the group were in the middle school chess club, so they knew how useful having a chess club can be.
A few teachers even think having a chess club would be a good idea. Although none of them could be reached to comment on it.
Also, having a chess club would be very beneficial. A complex game like chess would improve a student’s critical thinking, visualization, problem-solving, and strategic planning, and could even help them communicate better with other students. Spectrum News affirms this with their article, Chess Grandmaster explains the benefits and recent rise of the ‘brain sport. In this article, they state that, “ … (Chess) teaches a variety of skills, including visualization, critical thinking, and problem-solving. Students can then use those skills in their classes, and some studies show students who play in after-school or in-school chess clubs tend to get better grades in math.”
The Altoona High School needs a chess club for the sake of the students and teachers. Too many people miss out on something that could majorly improve their lives.
