By Susan Saulny
The New York Times
The games drew about 15 chess enthusiasts to a windowless conference room at City College in Harlem, where pawns and rooks were moved with such intensity of purpose that the scene could have passed for yet another high-stakes tournament.
The grandmaster and bona fide chess luminary Maurice Ashley was there, calling out commentary as he often does when championship matches are broadcast around the world. He is known to use lines like, "Pawns are attacking mercilessly!" and "The bishop is slicing and dicing!"
But what Mr. Ashley had to say about chess on this night was more academic. Literally. "A lot of times in education we try to teach kids the one right answer and that leads, in my opinion, to robotic thinking," he told the players, encouraging them to think of multiple possible moves before choosing the best play. "Real life isn't like that. Is there ever one right answer? Generating alternatives for the sake of alternatives is a good thing."
The players, mostly New York City public school teachers, nodded. This routine, the playing of chess followed by deep thoughts on education, happens every Wednesday night during a new class Mr. Ashley is teaching called "Introduction to Logical Thinking Through Chess" for the mathematics department at City College. Mr. Ashley and the dean of the college's school of education, Alfred S. Posamentier, organized the class with a lofty goal: improve teaching by guiding a group of teachers through the problem-solving strategies that are part of a good chess player's arsenal.
The seminar, an elective class worth two graduate credits, meets once a week for two and a half hours. Mr. Ashley tries to get the teachers to do what he does in chess and in life: think backward with a desired outcome in view, generate multiple options as possible solutions to any question, consider the perspectives of others, and give respect to the least powerful, the pawns of the game.
"Over the years, we have tried many different approaches to developing the most effective teachers," Dr. Posamentier said. "We have regulated the size of the class, the material the teacher uses, the kind of content background that is most desirable, and the philosophy that should work best. However, it seems we have not concentrated enough on the general thinking strategies that a teacher should master to maximize his effectiveness."
Now the educators are thinking about their thinking.
Before class on Wednesday night, Mr. Ashley explained a personal distaste for memorization and facts, and laid out his education philosophy, the one he hopes the teachers will take from the class: "Knowledge flips every day. What we know becomes wrong tomorrow. We need kids who know how to think."
The class seems a natural fit for Mr. Ashley. Unlike many of the country's top players who spend a lot of time preparing for tournaments, Mr. Ashley, a native of Jamaica who grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and lives in Queens, has been teaching children chess for years. He had never taught teachers before, but was willing to try.
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