Bill Brock and I are both chess teaching professionals, and on another thread, in another area, he posted a very
important question—
Who is the customer— is it the kids or their parents, who too often fall into the “tiger-mom” category??
I know for quite a few after-school chess teaching firms, this answer is quite simple-- the parents, of course.
For the quality of their programs is far, far less important than perceived “classroom control”, and “enjoyment”
on the part of the players. Many of these programs prosper by kickbacks of enlistment fees to the schools more
interested in revenue enhancement than any actual educational benefits offered. For them, cash is king. So if the chess class rates are just slightly more than basic day care, these firms will thrive, and their schools
as well. The individual players, though many do get an initial exposure to chess, not so much.
For me in a private teacher or tutor role, the answer is always the student. For in the end it is the student
It is important for the chess tutor to establish with the parents what the goals are. The rating system has to be explained and noted that it is just one part of the overall assessment of the player’s learning. Behavior and ethics issues must be discussed.
I tend to drop “tiger moms” and “little league dads” and their kids, even if it is a financial hit to do so. They usually are a pain, want all sorts of extra attention, e-mail constantly, and work against what you are trying to teach. The focus of these parents is on short cuts, special “secrets”, and figuring out slick ways to beat the other kids. They can be found trying to ferret out information about the opposition. They try to find ways to use the Rulebook to favor their kids. Occasionally, they browbeat the other parents. Quantitative assessments (ratings) are valued more highly than qualitative assessments of the player’s increasing understanding. In fact, ratings become an obsession, with every point gained or lost fretted over. This poor attitude is naturally picked up by their kids, who think that short cuts are better than hard work. They go for traps rather than sound moves. They become rules benders because that is what they see their parents doing. This translates into their school work, too.
It is so much easier to work with parents and kids who want to develop a whole game. It is fun to watch their development as they learn to search for tactical patterns, play positionally, and value the aesthetic quality of their play. They may move up a little slower on the ratings scale, but they have fewer gaps in their knowledge. They like hard problems to solve and are inclined to stick at tasks rather than give up. Persistence becomes a personality trait. They find more reward in the respect of their opponents than in winning a trophy. They also learn to cope with success and failure, realizing that each is temporary. Ratings become a tool and not an obsession. When the parents are on board with those attitudes then you have helped develop a successful player.
Thank you for stating this problem so clearly, Rob.
There are many chess teachers/coaches, and many program leaders, who are child-focused, and there are those who are not. Many know what they are doing, but some not only don’t know what they are doing, but worry that someone who does know will come along and displace them, too. Sometimes this may be due to money issues, sometimes due to insecurities, sometimes due to inexperience.
I once had a call with a coach (who has, sadly, departed the scene in the years since this conversation) who led a rapidly growing program in his area, and he was looking for a curriculum to help him “take his program to the next level”. As we spoke on the phone and simultaneously toured through the Chess Magnet School curriculum and how it worked for students and their parents and for him as a coach, he suddenly paused in mid-sentence, and then asked “If the kids use this, will they not need Coach Johnny (not his real name) anymore?” He really feared that a family could replace having a coach for, say, $29.95/year, and that he would lose his students.
The truth is that many of the best coaches use and recommend all kinds of helpful resources, whether from my company, or Jeff Coakley’s workbooks, or other things, and the coaches are then able to work even more effectively with their students. Nothing replaces a good mentor, a person who can sit with a child or group of children and connect with them and guide them and inspire them and support them on a personal level. Coaches and program leaders like this do not lose students to services such as mine, or to books such as Jeff’s - as I am sure Rob and Tom will affirm.
How to influence and assist coaches and program leaders who do not focus on maximizing the value to each child is a great topic for discussion.
Hal, I partially disagree with you on this. There are parents who want a quick fix and think that software alone will help their child progress. So, they drop the coach and buy the product or go online in search of the “secret” that little Mary can use all of the time to beat her opponents. When I have a parent like this, I am almost glad to see them go. They don’t really understand what they are missing when they drop a competent teacher/coach who is customizing his lessons for that particular student, who knows that student’s personality, strengths, and weaknesses. After a while an instructor morphs into coach/trainer who agonizes and exults over his student’s play. The quick fix does not give you that, but some parents are looking more at the bottom line and ratings rather than the real improvement of the player’s thinking processes and character. In many ways, you have to train the parent and the child to understand the goals and the many ways to get there. Some get it, some don’t want to listen.
I do recommend the Coakley books for the beginner and advanced beginner. I also point out various websites that players can use to play or research games. When they go past the 1000 rating, we go into more complex tactical studies, endgames, and positional play. We search out together for new sites and puzzle books. Tournament games are deeply analyzed to look for patterns of mistakes and exceptionally good play. I particularly like the books, “Chess Strategy for the Club Player” and the “Quality Chess Puzzle Book” (John Shaw). Both are well thought out and present up to date material.
A player can learn chess on his own. There are a ton of resources to do that. Having an instructor/coach can speed the process and lead the player into directions he can’t even imagine.
Wow, you really hit the nail on the head. And yes, the “tiger-parents” do think somehow they know quite often
better than the coach under their employ what their child should be learning. Pain is a good description. With me
they do not last long either. I have been told several times by such parents–I just bought Fritz, so why do I need
you?? They are shocked at the response, I think you have a point (which is a polite way of backing out)
In defense of tiger parents: many are far more enlightened than the stereotypical bad Little League dad. The “good tiger parent” understands that results will eventually come when understanding happens.
The other side of the coin: the customer is the one who pays the bills. It is the parent who is paying the coach to deliver services to the student, often times with no way of judging the value received other than win-loss percentages. The parents spend far more time with their children than the coach ever will (we certainly hope!) and may be a better expert on who their child is and how they learn best (maybe.)
I’ve known coaches who very much want to keep parents at arms length, which seems to me to be a wrong approach. (And known parents deservant of being kept at arms length. Which is still a wrong approach, though I am sympathetic.) I’ve also known teachers willing to give parents lessons for free when their children are take lessons with him - very few parents take him up on that.
Parents have expectations about the services being provided to their kids, and a not wrongful expectation that a coach will help the student become a better chess player. (If misguided that ‘better chess player’ means ‘wins more games.’) The best coaches I’ve seen are the ones who spend time with the parents as well, clarifying what expectations they (parents) have, what the coach can deliver, and what the students goals are and what they have to do as part of the process as well. It isn’t right to expect a child who doesn’t want to be a chessplayer at all, and going through the motions to please Mom and Dad, to magically strengthen… but I’ve known coaches who aren’t forthright about pointing out to parents the child’s hesitancy to be a player.
So, for those of you who do teach regularly… how many students have you turned away / decided to terminate the relationship because you can’t ethically deliver what the parent paying you is expecting?
Interesting question as phrased. Most often the issue is that the
student is not playing enough tournaments for successful growth.
That is the parent simply cannot work more than say, a tournament
every 3-4 months into their child’s and their busy schedule. Such
is simply not enough, or really even close. I have found that proper
retention and application of material learned in lessons does require
far more frequent tournament play. Now, I realize for many areas of
our federation, frequent tournaments are simply not available. But,
this is certainly not an issue in the DFW area.
The second area calling for relationship termination in my mind is
when parents refuse to yield direction of chess study to their instructor. That is,
Interesting question as phrased. Most often the issue is that the
student is not playing enough tournaments for successful growth.
That is the parent simply cannot work more than say, a tournament
every 3-4 months into their child’s and their busy schedule. Such
is simply not enough, or really even close. I have found that proper
retention and application of material learned in lessons does require
far more frequent tournament play. Now, I realize for many areas of
our federation, frequent tournaments are simply not available. But,
this is certainly not an issue in the DFW area.
The second area calling for relationship termination in my mind is
when parents refuse to yield direction of chess study to their instructor. That is, the insistence that the instructor teach certain
“lines”, stress “their key points”, etc. Now, I do respectfully listen
to their ideas, but, I must work from what I know has worked before
with other students.
These are the two greatest concerns I have in the parent/teacher
relationship. Hope this answers the question.
More play is necessary, but USCF tournament play is not.
The student would be well-served to have his instructor tell him to consider Chess.com (or similar) as the primary center of his chess playing world; and to relegate the infrequent rated USCF to a mere secondary status. Even if a USCF tournament is available every weekend, by today’s web standards that is infrequent availability.
As emphasized in your post, more play is better.
Here in 2013 the USCF still has no organized play on the web, so I presume we can agree that the USCF never will have organized play on the web (except for correspondence chess, which has never used T.D.'s or other on-site proctors).
Psychologically, playing another person over the web is much more engaging than playing against Fritz.
USCF rated tournaments are still the most exciting games, except for the travel and expense and dead time between rounds.
Empirically speaking, the USCF does not really have “areas”, except for the USA. Not merely “many”, but rather “most” areas in the USA have terribly few USCF rated tournaments in a given year, or none at all.
In debate one can defeat that observation by increasing the geographic radius that defines an area, but that is kinda weak.
The 24 x 7 x 365 web suffers no none-in-area problem. It is unfortunate that the USCF will never organize regular rated play over the web on any scale that matters.
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True, that. I think one can get retention and application by playing in other environments than rated tournament play. But I’ve also had friends who’ve had parent conversations about lack of play by the student. (After several weeks on end of asking “let’s see the game you played this last week,” to have the reply, “I didn’t play any games this last week.”)
Surely it does. To me, it implies that you are willing to be flexible but nevertheless have a set of standards where you recognize you may not be the “tool” for the job the parents want. And I’m not denying that there are parents who essentially want tools which do not exist. (Or worse, which are not effective.) It can put a teacher into an ethical bind, where parents want something different than what you deliver when you know the student can still benefit from what you’re offering. Not all teachers and coaches are that way, though.
With your second argument, I cannot debate, for I fear you are correct. While unfortunate, it is nevertheless, correct.
I regard to the first–there is Very Little comparison between the value of OTB and internet play for youngsters. Very, Very little. While Internet is better than none, this is where the comparison stops. I teach chess full time to
over a hundred kids per week in various settings. And I can tell you this–the ones who are showing the greatest
improvement, without exception, are the ones involved with OTB play.
That OTB is a far greater and more rigorous measure of one’s skill, for most tournaments, is I think beyond dispute,
for those who are experienced chess club directors. Often we have internet players with 1500+ ratings who
enter the USCF format for the first time who have a great difficulty in maintaining such levels in OTB play.
The stress and rules enforcement, such as touch move, tends to be far more stressful.
In regard to non-USCF events, historically, except in small deviations, your thoughts have not proven correct. USCF
is the standard, with with mountains of evidence to back it up.
And it is for this reason–If my students and their parents do not have a commitment to USCF play, they will be dropped. For in areas where these events are available there cannot be a valid excuse not to play USCF.
I know most of my fellow coaches in the DFW area. And most are exceptional. Thus when a parent tells me
that they are eager to hire me as their Kid’s coach, because it did not work with coach Y, generally alarm bells
go off. For experience has taught me this–most often the reason it did not work with coach X, Y or Z, is that
the student did not do that which is necessary to improve-- few tournaments, lack of assignment completion,
lost or non-existent notations, etc. Some of those I have taught have made the World Youth Team, some have
been on National Championship teams, Some have placed in the top 5 in state and national events. The credit
for these accomplishments is not mine-but rather, these individual kids who worked their tails off for their successes.
I am but a guide, and one of many. Excellence requires sacrifice and dedication. Few coaches find it possible to
overcome a student’s lack of passion.
I’ve wondered before about that lack of student passion in contrast to a parent’s desire. My hypothesis is that it often comes from a mismatch of parent’s goals and student’s goals.
It’s an element of my own play and progress (or lack thereof,) that improving my rating and play simply isn’t a passion of mine. While I enjoy my chess considerably, improving my play is not a primary motivator for that. I enjoy it when it occurs - and it does, glacially - but I place far more value in games where my opponent seems to be reasonably balanced in knowledge to me than working towards being able to consistently outplay a given opponent. So my rating is where it is, and I’m usually not uncomfortable with it. My chess passions still get sated without diminishing. What I’m really glad for is that I didn’t have a parent paying money and expecting my progress to improve. (Or worse, harboring a dream that I would become the next Carlsen.) I still remain a tournament player, and give my very best to it, but my motivations are to get around our state and let those experiences shape me to be a better TD. (And improving as a TD is something I’ve had a passion for.)
But me aside, I’d readily agree that a coach cannot inherently overcome lack of passion… The best that can be hoped for is a coach providing an enabling environment so that the student’s passion can be kindled. And maybe once in awhile there is latent passion that could be activated.
USCF is limited in its current structure in growing “areas.” Bill Hall’s administration certainly concentrated USCF activities on the southeast, but outside of Texas, has there been any membership growth in that part of the country? Not really.