Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Spiegel
Elizabeth Spiegel is a USCF expert who played in the US Championship in 2006 and the US Women’s Championship in 2007. Of course, her greatest accomplishments have come in the realm of coaching, as she is an award winning and renowned scholastic coach, as well as a New York Public City School teacher. Elizabeth has been a guiding force for the incredibly successful Junior High School chess program at IS-318 in Brooklyn. The students at IS 318 have amassed 57 National Championship Titles (!!), and the program was featured in the award-winning, excellent 2012 documentary, Brooklyn Castle.
Elizabeth was honored as the 2019 Chess Educator of the Year by University of Texas at Dallas, and her teaching was also memorably featured in the insightful book, How Children Succeed.
In our conversation, Elizabeth shared tons of insights from her experiences as a chess teacher, and parent. We also talked about way to further popularize chess, and a bit of US Chess politics, as Elizabeth voiced her frustration about some recent rule changes relating to age groupings at US Chess Scholastic Nationals. Please read on, as always for more details.
Click here to download the episode
0:00- We begin by talking about the chess activity in Elizabeth’s own household. Wiith chess-obsessed 12 and 6 yr old’s living under her roof, she sees a lot of chess learning first hand.
Mentioned: FM Mike Klein of Chesskid (aka FunMasterMike), Chessable, The Steps Method
13:50- How much is it appropriate for typical scholastic players and club level players and study openings?
Mentioned: Elizabeth’s 2019 Chess Educator of the Year Acceptance Speech, FM Justus Williams, NM James Black, FM Donny Ariel
19:30- 2 Patreon supporter of Perpetual Chess submit questions for Elizabeth asking for some teach tips.1) How to motivate students to do chess puzzles? 2) How to manage classes with disparate skill levels?
Mentioned: The great chess Books for kids by Jeff Coakley
25:00- How has Elizabeth’s teaching changed since Brooklyn Castle was released in 2012?IS 318 Web Site
Mentioned: IS 318 Vice-Principal John Galvin, Facebook Chess Teacher’s Forum, Katie Dellamaggiore (Director of Brooklyn Castle), John Hamm of Mad Men
32:00- To check out the World Championship chess mugs, go to Chessmugs.com. If you decide to buy a set of mugs, use the code “perpetualchess” at checkout to save 15%.
33:00- Elizabeth shares a few more book recommendations.
Mentioned: Mastering Chess Strategy, Positional Decision Making in Chess, Chess School: The Manual of Chess Combinations. More of Elizabeth’s favorite books for teaching can be found here and here.
37:00- How could chess be better marketed? Elizabeth thinks there should be more titles in scholastic chess, and that chess could be better marketed to autistic students.
Mentioned: IM Cyrus Lakdawala
45:00- As Elizabeth details on her blog, in 2019 the US Chess Scholastic Committee changed the rules regarding which grade levels are eligible for Junior High Nationals prizes. Despite the fact that most schools labeled “Junior High” in the U.S. go up to 8th grade, the US scholastic Nationals allows 9th graders to compete for Junior High prizes as well. As Elizabeth explains, this primarily benefits private schools and magnet schools, at the expense of more traditional junior highs, such as, IS 318. A Patreon supporter of the podcast asks for Elizabeth’s thoughts on this issue, as well as whether it may have effected her winning the 2019 Chess Educator of the Year prize from University of Texas at Dallas.
Mentioned: Elizabeth’s blog, FM Sunil Weerumantry, WIM Beatriz Marinello, J.J Lang’s Perpetual Chess Interview
1:03- We discuss Elizabeth’s developing thoughts on chess parenting.
Mentioned: GM Jonathan Rowson’s All the Moves that Matter , Elizabeth’s beginner curriculum is available for download here,
Elizabeth’s “pin and skewer puzzle” here-
Solution here-
1:09- Thanks to Elizabeth for joining us! You can keep up with her via Facebook and her blog.
If you would like to help support the podcast, you can do so here: https://www.patreon.com/perpetualchess