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Franklin County in a remote corner of Mississippi has two stoplights, one elementary school, and long ago lost its only train stop.\u00a0 Could kids learn chess here?\u00a0 Would they even want to?\u00a0 Dr. Jeff Bulington took on the challenge, accepted a contract from an anonymous benefactor, left his home city of Memphis, and moved to Franklin.\u00a0 Predictions were that Bulington could perhaps find a dozen interested kids.\u00a0 He found hundreds!<\/p>\n
Bobby Poole, Bulington\u2019s assistant chess coach, put it: \u201cAll the statistics, everything you look at, Mississippi is the poorest.\u00a0 It\u2019s the dumbest.\u00a0 It\u2019s the fattest.\u00a0 We know that the rest of the nation has that conception of us….\u00a0 People said that country kids couldn\u2019t learn chess.\u00a0 We showed \u2018em different….\u00a0 We teach history.\u00a0 We teach geography.\u00a0 We teach science.\u00a0 We teach math.\u00a0 We teach it all using the chess board\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last spring Bulington\u2019s team of mostly elementary school kids from Franklin County faced off against much older high school players at the Mississippi state championships, and they held their own!\u00a0 Braden, one of the Franklin kids, put it: \u201cThey were basically, like, trying to say we were a joke cause we were kids.\u00a0 But after the game, we usually beat \u2018em and they were like very shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, a year-and-a-half after Jeff Bulington first showed up to introduce chess to a small county in Mississippi, 33 of Franklin County\u2019s chess wonders and their parents traveled to the national school championships.\u00a0 They faced more than 1,500 players from 644 schools, many from wealthy suburban school districts.\u00a0 The surprising result: Franklin\u2019s fifth graders came in 8th among all the fifth grades and their sixth graders came in 10th among all the sixth grades.\u00a0 As one Franklin parent put it: \u201cWhat happened is a bunch of hillbillies beat the snot out of a bunch of really highly educated, sophisticated people.\u00a0 So that\u2019s what happened\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0Chess has helped the Franklin kids see there\u2019s more to themselves than they\u2019ve seen before:<\/p>\n
\u00a0Parker: \u201cChess is, like, something that like I\u2019m like really good at for once.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0Donovan: \u201cAll my grades used to be like low, medium low Bs.\u00a0 Now, they\u2019re A\u2019s and high B\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0Rebekah: \u201cI feel like chess could take us anywhere.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not about where it takes us, it\u2019s about how far it takes us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0The year before chess arrived, seven of the 93 graduates from Franklin County High School went on to a four-year college, but every chess player at Franklin says he or she plans to attend college some day.<\/p>\n
\u00a0It\u2019s often said that to teach is to touch a life forever.\u00a0\u00a0 Through chess, these Franklin children\u2019s lives have been forever changed with hope and a brighter future.\u00a0 The cost of such a chess program is minuscule compared to almost all other educational programs.\u00a0 Hopefully other school districts, especially less advantaged districts, can take notice.<\/p>\n
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Good News Counts,<\/p>\n
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Marty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"