Joseph Ocol (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
How many squares are there on a chessboard?” the teacher asked his students.
“Sixty three,” a fragile-looking boy with buzz cut hair reluctantly said.
“Are you sure?” said the teacher, glancing at the boy and then scanning the rest of the room for a face that seemed to know the answer.
It took a brief moment of silence and tension before the class finally shouted in unison, “Sixty-four!”
“Very good!” the teacher exclaimed. “That’s sixty-four equal squares.”
This was a scene from the second meeting between Chicago-based educator Joseph Ocol and around sixty kids, ages 6 to 18, under Cebu City Councilor Nestor Archival’s scholarship program last Saturday.
During their first gathering in Archival’s home in Talamban last week, the scholars were taught the basics of chess—the names of the pieces, the number of squares on a board and how to start a game, among others.
But Ocol not only teaches kids about chess, he also teaches them about life.
Ocol taught the children that chess is a tool that can help a person’s capacity to make the right choices.
“It develops our analytical thinking skills and teaches us to solve problems,” he said.
He said that contemplating one’s moves in the game is similar to contemplating one’s choices in life.
Furthermore, he taught the kids that the inevitability of failure in life is akin to losing in a game of chess.
“Nobody is perfect. Life is full of failures. But when you fail, you learn,” Ocol told them.
Other pointers that Ocol shared to the kids were about having grounded thinking and being in control of one’s decisions.
Ocol said he hopes to see Archival’s scholars become mentors someday.
“You can become a catalyst for even the smallest changes in the world.
When you teach, you can touch and change lives of other people through chess or other means,” Ocol told the kids.
Ocol said that “chess is life” and the mentoring program is meant to make thinkers out of people.
“We want to teach them to be well-rounded, to think deeper and wider,” he said.
He said that society has been building up so many “gladiators” in the form of athletes that are involved in physical sports, yet lacks the “thinkers” that will eventually lead.
Dominic Enovero only learned chess from watching classmates play back when he was twelve.
Now 14, he is identified by his fellow scholars as the best chess player in the group.
With the mentoring program, Dominic said he is excited to share what he has learned to others.
Meanwhile, 16-year old Caryl Suson said chess will help her train her mind, especially now that she is in her fourth year at the Talamban National High School.
“It’s important to nurture the mind as early as possible. We should also stay away from bad habits like doing drugs,” she said.
This Saturday, the scholars will again meet with their chess teacher for a tournament wherein prizes are at stake.
Ocol, who has been teaching in the US for 15 years, will be leaving the country this August.
He said some professionals who play chess have expressed their desire to help sustain the mentoring program even when he is abroad.
Ocol said that he hopes to expand the program to other groups and even schools through the help of Councilor Archival.
Archival, on the other hand, said he is looking into proposing to the City Council an ordinance that would push the use of chess as a means to improve the academic performance of students.
However, he said it will still have to be studied.
Students who joined Ocol’s chess club in the US won statewide and national chess tournaments. Their academic performance also improved.
He said he hopes to see the children develop sensitivity for the plight of others and become better citizens.
“Nothing compares to the satisfaction brought by the knowledge that I touched lives of children and that I was able to leave a legacy for God’s glory,” he told Cebu Daily News.
Aside from getting a personal congratulatory message from US President Barack Obama for his successful teaching strategy, Ocol, according to the marshallmetrohighschool.org, website of the Marshall Metro High School, “In April 2010, he and his student, Lorenzo Cox, were interviewed and featured on Chicago’s television WWME Channel 23 (CPS Sports Edition) about Lorenzo’s 1st place finish in the 2010 Illinois High School Association chess championship, a first ever in Marshall’s 117-year history.”
And perhaps, as an indubitable mark he is Pinoy, Ocol, according to the website “hopes to continue reaching his students through a chess-math-karaoke club at Marshall.”
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