I’m Richard James. My particular interest is in the intersection between chess and childhood.
I’ve been involved in chess for children since 1972, as a teacher, tutor, author, promoter, club organiser, tournament organiser, arbiter, historian and almost anything else you might think of.
In 1975 my friend Mike Fox and I founded Richmond Junior Chess Club, and, after Mike moved away a few years later, I ran it myself, with a lot of help from parents, former members and friends, until 2006. For most of that time we were arguably the strongest children’s chess club in the country, and perhaps one of the strongest in the world.
In 1993 I started becoming involved in chess in schools, and, within a few years, developed concerns about the real value of promoting mass participation in chess within primary schools. You can read my articles on the subject here.
Over the past 30 years I’ve read extensively on many aspects of childhood and schooling, in an attempt to discover the cause of my concerns, and to suggest ways in which we in the chess community might incorporate an alternative approach.
My quest was something personal as well. You see, I’ve always known that chess saved my life. Because chess had become a learning tool for younger children rather than a hobby for older children, it was no longer something that would have helped children like me. In the 1960s chess was very popular among boys of secondary school age, but, within the space of a few decades competitive chess for teenagers, at least below elite level, was in danger of becoming extinct.
It became clear to me that, in many cases, decisions were being made by a combination of teachers with little knowledge of chess and chess promoters like myself with little understanding of children.
The wrong teachers, including me, were teaching the wrong children at the wrong age, in the wrong place, using the wrong methods and for the wrong reasons.
We were, in general, starting children too soon, teaching them too quickly and putting them into tournaments before they were ready. Yes, a few exceptionally talented children with exceptionally supportive parents were benefitting from this approach, but most were gaining short-term enjoyment at the expense of genuine long-term advantages. Some of them not even that.
But it was exactly what many parents and schools wanted - and were prepared to pay good money for, in some cases just because it was ‘fun’, and in other cases because they believed it would enhance their children’s academic performance and future career prospects.
I eventually realised that the problem wasn’t to do with chess, but it was rather a societal problem, to do with education and childhood. My friends and colleagues involved in junior chess were, understandably, making a living by reacting to market forces. While many of them were doing an excellent job, I wasn’t convinced that what they were doing actually provided children with any real long-term benefit.
It seemed to me that over the decades since I grew up we’ve gradually lost the point of childhood, what it means to be a child. And if you lose the idea of what it means to be a child, you’ve also lost the idea of what it means to be human.
I have a lot to say about what’s happened to children’s chess during my lifetime, and a lot of questions to ask about what’s happened to childhood and education over the same period.
I’ll be telling something of my life story so that you can understand where I’m coming from and why my views are so different from those you’ll hear elsewhere, and why, as I wrote earlier, I believe that chess saved my life.
I’ll also be proposing some ways in which the chess community might think about taking a different approach which would be more helpful for children like the boy I was.
I might also post about anything else that piques my interest, even if it’s only of tangential relevance to my main theme.
If you’re interested in chess, or childhood, or both, please subscribe to my Substack to find out more.