Upon recommendation from some friends, we watched this movie. We loved it!
When the young chess whiz was first becoming interested in chess, he arranged his Playmobile people in a chess line-up. My daughter and I both gasped: my kids did that! They played chess with Playmobile kings and knights, with the little kids for pawns.
I loved the line near the middle of the movie where the boy was beginning to feel the pressure of being ranked #1. It went something like this: "Maybe it would be better not to be the best. Then nobody would be disappointed if you lost." There's some serious wisdom there if an over-achieving society has ears to hear.
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So did your children become chess champions? Did their tutor interfere with your idea of encouraging your child to do his best?
ReplyDeleteWe got our kids a great chess set with books to teach them strategies.....another idea from the parents that we thought was a good idea......
Karin whose kids also received movies and nerf guns. It must have been the best gift of the year. I need a nerf gun though to defend myself and sneak into their rooms with to see if they are really doing their math or reading.....Tin Tin comic books.
Chess champions? NO! They kept playing with the playmobiles like as if they were dolls or something! LOL.
ReplyDeleteY'know, Karin, one of the reasons we thought we liked homeschooling was because we figured it would protect the children from that "drivenness" to perfectionism. We thought perfectionism was something that kids would learn from competition in school, and working for grades instead of for the joy of obtaining knowledge. Turns out we were wrong. It's simply genetic.
Avoiding competition was a reason we homeschooled also. In some cases it was the VERY best decision I ever made by the Grace of God. (Is Grace capatilized?).
ReplyDeletePerfectionists......there are a few lurking in this house too....genetics.
Karin
"First of all, I'll make a tour of the whole world, giving exhibitions. I'll charge unprecedented prices. I'll set new standards. I'll make them pay thousands. Then I'll come home on a luxury liner. First-class. I'll have a tuxedo made for me in England to wear to dinner. When I come home I'll write a couple chess books and start to reorganize the whole game. I'll have my own club. The Bobby Fischer ... uh, the Robert J. Fischer Chess Club. It'll be class. Tournaments in full dress. No bums in there. You're gonna have to be over eighteen to get in, unless like you have special permission because you have like special talent. It'll be in a part of the city that's still decent, like the Upper East Side. And I'll hold big international tournaments in my club with big cash prizes. And I'm going to kick all the millionaires out of chess unless they kick in more money. Then I'll buy a car so I don't have to take the subway any more. That subway makes me sick. It'll be a Mercedes-Benz. Better, a Rolls Royce, one of those fifty-thousand-dollar custom jobs, made to my own measure. Maybe I'll buy one of those jets they advertise for businessmen. And a yacht. Flynn had a yacht. Then I'll have some more suits made. I'd like to be one of the Ten Best-dressed Men. That would really be something. I read that Duke Snyder made the list. Then I'll build me a house. I don't know where but it won't be in Greenwich Village. They're all dirty, filthy animals down there - lower than cats and dogs. Maybe I'll build it in Hong Kong. Everybody who's been there says it's great. Art Linkletter said so on the radio. And they've got suits there, beauties, for only twenty dollars. Or maybe I'll build it in Beverly Hills. The people there are sort of square, but like the climate is nice and it's close to Vegas, Mexico, Hawaii, and those places. I got strong ideas about my house. I'm going to hire the best architect and have him build it in the shape of a rook. Yeah, that's for me. Class. Spiral staircases, parapets, everything. I want to live the rest of my life in a house built exactly like a rook"(Bobby Fischer)...read more
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