Armenia makes chess compulsory for school children

[Wowbagger]

BBC News - Should every child be made to play chess?

A good move, I think, for Armenia, where there is already a great deal of chess played.

If this were tried in the UK, it would fail as there are simply not enough decent chess players with the ability to teach to go round all our schools.

[mcshroom]

There are more than you would think actually.

I know it's not like compulsion, but a word for Mike Basman IM here who set up the UK chess challenge which has brought thousands of new players into the game at schools around the country.

Not all good chess players would make good teachers though I grant you. I played Keith Arkell (IM at the time, now a GM) in a simultaneous for juniors when I was younger. We were all sat at tables in a square and he played us all while sipping from a pint glass placed at each corner of the square as he went round. After these glasses had been replaced twice he became a bit strange 

[hellymedic]

I really would not want it made compulsory. Chess does nothing for me and never did. Some members of my extended family¹ are/were rather good as were some of my sibs.
I really didn't like it and left it to those who did, which is how it should be IMO.

1) I think my mother's late oldest brother was Sweden's Lightning Chess champ.²
2) He challenged one of my brothers to beat him, for a prize of a trip to the USA. My brother won...

[Jaded]

I found that the trouble with chess was that remembering algorithms seemed to be more important than using your brain on the fly and plotting. As I prefer the latter, I lost interest. Maybe I should have spent a lot of time reading books and learning all the key algorithms.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's a good idea to make some kind of mental game part of the curriculum, but chess won't suit everyone, just as football doesn't suit everyone when it comes to physical games.