18874 - Chess on the border islands

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athena Kehagias

As chess is now officially incorporated in the Greek educational system, we can utilize on it, in order to help our border islands. Because we have to understand that they are situated in strategic positions and therefore play a topostrategic, chronostrategic role. It is therefore wise, for the young people who live in these areas to be able to have access to chess thinking, so as to develop their way of thinking in other fields as well, even if there are no local entities that support such action.
What’s important, is for chess players to help the teachers, directly or indirectly, through seminars and this knowledge to be enhanced by teaching, because in this context, we don’t deal with chess as a sport, but on the contrary, as a creative development tool.
For this reason we present the classic chess board to small people, but the others types as well, such as the Byzantine one, the Castric one, and the SER.
In this manner they understand how the pieces function by changing the chessboard, and how the movements are adapted, in order to become actions.
With all those chessboards, we can give prominence to the plasticity of the brain, since it can be expressed more freely and creatively.
Each border island is a square that seems isolated, while with chess, the young people can discover that they live in the same chessboard, of the same nation, which belongs to the sea and to Time, so they will also feel within them, the need for strategy in order that they may remain free people.