Strategy, Technology, and Teaching?

The game of chess is a strategic two-person board game. A game in which you maneuver against your opponent by cornering them into a position in which they ultimately have to surrender.

If you are looking to understand how to better play chess, or where it was originated then I suggest you go to google. The purpose of this post is to show you a new perspective about teaching. Now you are probably wondering what does chess have to do with teaching?

Let's try this, I suppose chess can be used metaphorically to describe teaching. The person who wins lays out a foundation for the person who loses to learn and understand how to play the game better. Okay that was a weak attempt, now let's dive into the post.

My Grandfather was an avid chess player. He would play everyday without fail against his neighbour.

"When you do something repeatedly everyday it doesn't make you better. Doing something everyday that's challenging you does."

I want to stop here and examine this fact. Playing against someone of the same level as you will not make you any better. Playing against someone weaker than you will make you worse, and playing against someone better than you will make you better.

Studies have proven this and I will write a new post about the level of which you want to be competing against.

Let's continue, playing chess against my grandfather was something I did not look forward to, and that's strange because naturally I love competing.  I don't see the point in any game unless there can be a loser or a winner. Fuck the playing for fun crap.

I was young, it was in my childhood days, and from what I remember I did not like the game itself. Not because it was challenging, okay maybe a little bit because of this, but also because I had no patience in sitting and playing the game.

Some children amazingly have the patience to sit there and play. Beating your opponent in anything is a rush on it's own. Tactically mastering your way to defeating the other person, who wouldn't like it? It makes you feel smarter and you accomplish it all by yourself.

Moving on, my grandfather was a great chess player, and I sucked at it. When I would make a move he would give me this funny look. It was a look of confusion followed by disgust. He would always beat me. I would get so frustrated but, worse of all I felt I was not learning how to play better each time.

My moves as he would call them were "irresponsible" he would tell me what I did wrong and sometimes he would correct me and tell me what I should do. But, I never excelled, or at least that's what I thought.

Was my grandfather a good teacher or a bad teacher or somewhere in between? How do you define what a good teacher is? Does everyone have there own definition of what a good teacher is? Could a teacher be considered good to one student and not good to another?

If you enjoyed the first part of this post I gurantee you will enjoy the rest
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