When I started teaching at NEST+m, the school gave all of us a handbook. It was exceptionally (excessively?) detailed, containing, among other things, a lesson evaluation rubric and examples of what constituted a successful or unsuccessful lesson. Between student teaching, graduate school, and entering the ‘real world’, I got an idea of what good teaching - really, I should say good learning - is meant to look like.
Today, I have the pleasure of telling you about an old student of Elizabeth’s and mine , who went on to excel as a player and a coach — National Master Mubassar Uddin!
Nolan has an interesting chess background: He played in his first tournament at the age of 13, didn’t have a non provisional rating for two years, and became a National Master before his 18th birthday.
When I started teaching, I didn’t have any particular understanding of how chess players improve — just my own scattershot experiences. Elizabeth immediately showed me a few things:
Last year, we had our first ever camp. We put an amazing team of instructors together, almost all of whom are returning this year. It was a huge amount of work, but also a blast. There is something special about working with highly motivated teachers at the top of their game.
