Teen Chess Drop Out
December 19th, 2007
One of the troubling aspects of Scholastic Chess is the drop out rate among those teens entering high school. Yes, there are numerous examples of students who start playing and continue though high school and into college, but for every one of those, I can point to 10 who drop out between middle school and high school. Why — and what can we do about it?
As to why, most of my fellow players say something like, “Well, you know, they are in high school and there’s cars and girls.” I think there is some truth to this, but I also think there are more subtle reasons at work. I have had teenage students confess to me that they were getting peer pressure from their non-chess playing friends. You can fill in the blanks. “Chess isn’t cool.” “Chess is for nerds.” “You can’t possibly compare chess to football or basketball.” And so on.
I’ve seen fathers exacerbate the problem. I had a student who loved chess and was an excellent player. The boy was tall and his father had dreams of him becoming a star basketball player. The father actually told me that he was trying to discourage his son from playing chess. Eventually the father got his way and the boy dropped out of chess. As a side note, he played mediocre basketball in high school, but did not play in college.
I blame myself, partially, for what happened, and for that matter for all those who drop out between middle school and high school.
If we are wondering why the drop out rate continues, we can look to ourselves as instructors. Somewhere along the line, we have failed to make them believe chess is the coolest game in the world. If they truly believed this, most would not be dropping out.
I think it’s important to get school athletic coaches on board. And, it wouldn’t hurt to have one of the school jocks to also be a chess player. Or, vice versa.
I think, as coaches, we need to develop relationships with our local media. If a student is getting “press” when he or she participates in tournaments, it validates chess in the eyes of the student, his peers, and the general population of that area. Is the school newspaper being utilized to promote chess?
I don’t know whether the teen drop out rate is the same in Europe as it is in the U.S. I would be interested in hearing from players in Europe.