"What does community mean to you? What makes a community?" This year, I have started my freshman year at Westview High School, where the first few days have been focused on community-building rather than academics. And while I have grown tired of these particular questions, the relentless repetition of them has forced…
"Are you sure that you're supposed to sit there?" Well, of course. I thought. "I'm not sure. Let me check." I said. I walked over to the pairing board, and sure enough, I had sat... in the wrong place? It was the sixth round of the North American Youth Chess Championship, a…
Three classrooms of students. Two gatherings of friends. One. Hundred. People. That's the number of people I was challenged to teach chess to within a year. I was at the closing ceremony of the Haring National Tournament of Girls State Champions. The Haring runs concurrently with the Irwin (Senior), the Denker…