This is a story I found on Reddit, which I've re-posted here for interest's sake. The remainder of this post is a copy + paste quotation.
Okay SPOILER
ALERT if you're going to Langley HS in Northern Virginia. There's a great
experience ahead of you if you get Mr. Herzig but the entire thing is ruined if
you read this. DON'T DO THAT. This is for everyone outside of this chunk of
maybe several hundred people who would be so lucky. And apparently a couple
people who also took his class.
Chess
reminds me of the best teacher I was lucky to have. In high school, we had year
of modern history, covering Civilization from the Renaissance to about as close
to present day as they can get. US history picked up the rest next year.
That Civ
teacher, Mr. Herzig, had very inventive class projects, often involving the
entire class in some sort of simulation. For the reformation era, he split us
into a Meeting of the Minds, 12 students were each given a philosopher to
emulate. The rest helped them research, or prepared questions for the other
philosophers.
During this
whole time, Mr. Herzig has also been talking up his love of chess, encouraging
kids to play him. Any kid that can beat him gets a free A on any grade,
up to sections of the Final. Of course, almost no one ever beat him, hard when
you only have 10 minutes in a break to play, and he has three people trying to
play him. He kept warning his class that there would be a chess test, everyone
was required to pass it.
Around
February, we finally got the date for the chess test. We spent a period on all
the rules of chess, and a day before he posted the test right on the board. We
took the test, then reviewed with the class, then graded our
own test, in our own pencils. Eraser marks would be ignored. He congratulated
everyone on Acing the test and then revealed the truth.
Next week
was the Chess Simulation.
He handed
out the assignment. The class was to play a 2-team game of chess, through move
notations and a literal chain of orders. Three boards were set up. One on each
side of the class for each team, and one board at the front, where Mr. Herzig
stood with a timer. Every student was to be assigned a piece on the board. For
fairness, and class size not matching the number of pieces, pawns would be assigned
in larger groups, 3 or 4 I think. To move a piece, the move must be written
down in chess notation and delivered by the person moving the piece to Mr.
Herzig at the head of the class. Those assigned King were given the greatest
duty. They were the final arbiters of what the moves were. They had to design
an "official mark," some stamp or their initials, and sign each
notation with it before the piece delivered the move. There were even Coup
d'état rules for pieces threatening the king. If moves didn't get to the
teacher after 5 minutes, no move would be recorded. Moves happened not by piece
color, but by whomever move was delivered first. You did not need to checkmate,
you just had to take the opposing king.
This was not
normal chess.
Grading was
simple. A: Your side wins and your piece lives. B: Your side wins and your
piece dies. C: Your side loses and your piece lives D: Your side loses and your
piece dies. F: You touch the main board, board cart, or otherwise interfere in
the simulation. This was the ONLY way to fail the simulation.
We're
assigned our pieces that day, I got a rook. Being the nerd I was, I suggested
to our king that we go for a quick strike strategy, but he wasn't as engaged
into the project as I was, so we essentially go in with little plans. No one
was really sure how it was going to turn out. The day of the simulation, we get
a quick review of the rules and then we start.
It was
madness, both sides are trying to get orders out the fastest, getting orders
written and figuring out whoever is getting moved so they can dash up their
orders. Our side manages to have a clear shot in only 5 or 6 moves, we hustle
our bishop with orders and they pass it off first. We're already celebrating as
the other side slinks forward, seeing they're too late. Mr. Herzig announces
our move. Is invalid. Our king didn't sign the notation properly, the order is
ignored. The other side's move of a bishop to block is executed. We flip out at
our king for a second before immediately re-assessing the board and finding a
new path to victory. More turns passes as pieces flew across the board, some
students indifferent or completely confused on the side, just waiting to hear
if they actually had to do something. Others unclear if they were even still in
the game. Incorrect moves started to mount, trying to move pieces that weren't
there, or doing moves they could not.
As we argued
about our move in turn 15-20, Mr. Herzig hollered and told us to take our
seats. We realized the period was ending and we had no clear winner. He
apologized, and explained that he had tricked us. There would be no grade given
for the simulation. He would explain fully the next day.
It went
something along these lines. We had just experienced a War simulation. He
explained how he purposefully split the class, picked two friends for opposing
kings, split friends across teams. How quickly we started clamoring to get the
other team in pursuit of our own grades, even at the cost of the grades of our
friends. The FOG of war in not knowing for certain if your table matched the
True table at the front of the class. Having no idea what the opposing table
may look like. The fury of a team when one king screws up an order. He admitted
that in years past, he would extend the simulation by faking these errors, and
he fudged a few in this game, but our king's mistake was real, and hilariously
poignant. He also talked of great Generals of war cursing the weather or god
for bad luck. I bet he swapped some pieces around on his board too when no one
was looking.
This whole
explanation hit me like a ton of bricks. Realizing as a 16-year old what it's
like to call for someone else to have misfortune for your own benefit.
The grade
was never entered. For our class the simulation didn't exist, just a 100% quiz
on how to play chess. He asked us to not share the secrets of this simulation
with underclassmen, he needed to be sure future students had a chance at the
same effect. There was a rumor that one class got A's across the board. I can't
remember if it was our year, or one before it, and if they were helped or not.
They refused
to turn in any orders.
I didn't
realize then, but I did while writing this, that if only the Pawns and the
Knights refuse, the board is locked and the rest don't matter. If they still do
the King's wishes, the Knights can only wreak havoc on the other team's pawns
without facing certain death.
Some people
have asked how it goes. You can really infer most of it from this post, I don't
think there's any real secrets that I left out/didn't know. But I'll go over it
here:
Learn/teach
the mechanics and rules of chess. Teach how each piece moves,
about special situations like castling, en passant, and the knight jumping
pieces. Don't worry about any kind of gametheory, early/middle/endgame. Just
give them enough to be able to watch a game and have a chance at knowing what
is going on. Teach the notation so
they could understand the flow a game if they only saw a recap.
For the
simulation itself, assign each student to a single piece, or a group of pawns,
on either color. Knowing your class and how it interacts with itself is pretty
key for the best effect. There's some nuances of chess and human psyche that I
could guess at, but you'll probably find better results by trusting yourself.
Kings write
out the move orders and sign in their unique way. Pieces deliver the orders to
the front of the class. Our room had the desks arranged in a U, so we could put
the student boards at each corner, and the True board on a cart at the front of
the room.
Have a timer
set for 5 minutes. Each round wait for both moves to arrive, then announce and
execute the moves in the order you get them. Find good BS reasons to veto moves
that would end the simulation (you have at least 4 rounds). For the simulation
proper you just need to be the arbiter of the game, be the only one to actually
move pieces. Make sure no one touches the cart.
