This is a true story. I suspect every teacher has a few like this. It happened around 25 years ago.
Long ago, I got the job of running a special class for children with communication difficulties. I loved the job and adored my class of courageous little 5–7-year-olds. There were a few problems, though. This special class had been foisted on a mainstream primary school, and no one had tried to forge links between the two.
It was housed in a demountable classroom located just behind the school toilets. My pupils were routinely bullied and teased in the playground, and even the school’s head teacher referred to them in the staffroom as ‘nutty kids with nutty parents.’
I knew something had to be done to change the entrenched attitudes, but I couldn’t see where to start.
The universe decided to lend a hand.
One lunchtime the smallest and most vulnerable little boy in my class was set upon by three 11 year old lads from the main school. Asher (who was a 7 year old in my class at the time) saw what was happening and rushed over to help his friend. The bullies turned on him instead.
How I dealt with those boys in the short term is described in my forthcoming book A Mind Beyond Words, so I’ll leave that part of the story for now. However the incident gave me the germ of an idea which was to transform attitudes within our school.
I knew a bit about those three lads from the top class — let’s call them Tom, Dick, and Harry. I knew they were academically able. When on patrol duty around the school during wet playtimes, I noticed that they’d invariably be hunched over a chessboard, two playing and the third offering helpful hints.
I was sure I remembered Asher’s parents mentioned that he was keen on chess. I’d discovered by then that despite his speech and language difficulties, he was an exceptionally gifted little boy.
“Can you play chess, Asher?” I asked him one break time.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Are you good at it?”
He thought for a moment, wondering how to answer. “I beat my dad dumtime,” he said.
I knew Asher’s dad well enough to know he wasn’t the sort of person to go easy on an opponent — not even his small autistic son.
“Let’s have a game then,” I suggested. “Can you set the board up for me?”
He had the pieces out in moments: white on the right, queens on their colours, everything correct.
It was clear after the first two or three moves that he knew what he was doing. I beat him that time, but I had to play my very best. Yes, I was satisfied that my plan would work.
A week or so later I’d bought in a stack of cheap chess sets and had announced in assembly that there would be a chess club every Friday lunchtime in my classroom and that all ages were welcome.
On the first day about twenty youngsters arrived. Tom, Dick and Harry swaggered in, grinning confidently. As children sorted themselves into pairs and I gathered a beginners group who would be working with me in the corner, I noticed that Asher was sitting alone at a board, while Tom was standing watching his two mates settle to a game.
“Why don’t you give Asher a game while you’re waiting, Tom?” I called pleasantly.
A range of expressions crossed the boy’s face in quick succession.
“What, him?” he said.
“Yes,” I smiled. “He should be able to give you a good match.”
Harry and Dick smirked. Tom shrugged and went to join Asher. I wasn’t sure how good a player Tom was, but I knew that, at the very least, he’d get a surprise when he discovered Asher’s skill.
I turned my attention to the beginners and, ten minutes later, just managed to stop myself from letting out a yell of triumph and delight as Asher’s distinctive voice rung across the room: “Checkmate”.
Dick and Harry chortled while Tom sat, red-faced and glowering. Both the other lads were keen to play Ash when their game was finished.
Dick lasted seconds. Harry’s match lasted much longer, and from my place across the room, I noticed glances of mutual respect passing between Asher and his opponent.
“That one with black hair wa pretty dood,” Asher told me afterwards, when I asked if he’d enjoyed the experience.
Word spread. Within a few weeks, children, and even a few staff, were queuing up to play Asher or to watch his matches. I found a second chess star, too — another neurodivergent child. Mick was in the mainstream school, but his extreme dyslexia meant he had very low self-esteem and was often picked on by others.
Chess, it seemed, was the great leveller.
I bought some glitzy plastic trophies and rosettes in the summer term and announced a school-wide chess competition to select a chess team to play matches against other local schools.
It goes without saying that Asher, at the tender age of 7, became the school champion and captain of the team, with Mick as his deputy.
More than that, though, the entire attitude of the school changed towards the children in the special class.
Can you imagine how much joy and satisfaction it gave me to watch the head teacher handing Asher his trophy and congratulating him while the whole school clapped and cheered?