Local students learn chess from former world champ

More and more schools across the U.S. are incorporating chess as a way to increase the academic performance of students. For Elena Donaldson, the concept is as simple as pawn to e4.

Donaldson is a three-time U.S. Women’s Chess Champion, three-time Russian Women’s Champion and two time World Chess Women’s Olympics Champion. And if that’s not enough, she also played a match for the world title in 1986.

Now she runs a chess school open to all area students at places like John Muir Elementary in Kirkland and the Bellevue Boys and Girls Club.

Donaldson’s passion for chess and her desire to see children succeed academically prompted her to develop a method she calls “Chess Academy.” This method, she said, when applied to 5 and 6 year olds, develops skills that will benefit them throughout their life.

It is important to get kids involved with chess before the third grade if they are to have any long-lasting change in their brain, Donaldson added. After third grade, “You don’t see the same results because their brain is already developed.”

Chess is a way for older kids to have self-confidence, inspiration and a means of personal expression in a social activity — not everyone is good at music or athletics, she said, and every student in school needs to have some activity they’re good at.

Donaldson said one only needs three elements to be a talented chess player: “Parental involvement, passion for the game and effort.” Donaldson believes all students should be involved in a chess program, but emphasized it can’t be just any chess program.

“It has to be an intensive chess program — it has to be academic,” she said.

Donaldson spoke as she wound down the second of three one-week chess camps at the Bellevue Boys and Girls Club earlier this month. The camps meet Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Camps typically have about 30 kids per session, but this week’s camp of six was small because of the July 4 holiday.

Today’s group has five boys and one girl between age 7 and 11, and the kids are anything but quiet. Several have just received medals from Donaldson for their various accomplishments such as finishing workbooks or winning a tournament. They are all eager to get back to their game.

Although it is 2:30 p.m. and their day is coming to an end, they all appear as excited and engaged in their respective games as though they’d just begun their day.

Archana, 11, the oldest of the group, said that “chess rocks!” She started playing just a couple of months ago and said she really likes it.

Sasikala Einstein, Archana’s mother, said this was Archana’s second camp with Donaldson. Einstein said they had heard about Donaldson’s chess program through friends and was impressed by Donaldson’s World Class Champion status.

Andy Main, athletic director of the Boys and Girls Club, said they hosted the Scholastic Chess Tournament that was a qualifier for the state championship. There were about 100 participants. They also hosted three individual chess tournaments this year. Although the individual tournaments have fewer participants, Main said, “They draw kids from Spokane to Vancouver.”

He said that Donaldson’s reputation as a world champion draws kids from all over Washington state to participate in her chess camps and classes.

~Tara Fuller is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Lab.

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