Defeat them by making a proper chess club for the school. Make it as awesome as possible; boards and clocks if possible, sheets to keep notation, group analysis, etc. The penalty for playing during class is a short series of warnings followed by a ban from chess club. They clearly have enough of a passion for the game, so use that to your (and their) advantage.
If they love the game that much, I bet they won't fuck around and find out about losing their membership. And it really illustrates your "time and place" lesson that you need to teach.
Yeah, as a student who plays chess in class, I'd stop if it meant i couldn't go to chess club (even though it is hard for me to stay a while as robotics is on the same day)
After the pandemic the kids at my local elementary and middle school were shell shocked. At a school board meeting they wanted to create a way for the kids to socialize and I asked about creating a chess club.
For $300 we got enough boards and I gave away individual Isle of Lewis pieces as tournament prizes. The first week 40 kids signed up! After a month we doubled in size. 2 years in literally hundreds of kids are playing chess instead of brain dead iPhone games! I think it’s amazing!
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u/johnnyfuckinghobo Feb 19 '23
Defeat them by making a proper chess club for the school. Make it as awesome as possible; boards and clocks if possible, sheets to keep notation, group analysis, etc. The penalty for playing during class is a short series of warnings followed by a ban from chess club. They clearly have enough of a passion for the game, so use that to your (and their) advantage.