Chair: Eva Vondrakova

Recent technologies enable extremely easy access to information, strikingly, it makes our decision processes rather more difficult. The amount of available data has changed the essence of our everyday problems from “I do not know it” to “I cannot find it”, “How should I select the best one” or “Can I trust it?” Moreover, the modern life-style requests to be rapid and flexible in making decisions.

The chess is a part of our culture for many centuries, however, its position in the society varied during the time. Nowadays, it seems to be an interesting tool in youth education and numerous countries start to implement it into curricula. The game is essentially a continuously changing set of problems of various difficulties. The player´s decision in each position requires proper identification of essential factors, evaluation of multiple possibilities and selection of the best one.

Benefiting from its playful form, chess can nonviolently cultivate in children the skills of concentration, patience, critical, analytical, logical and creative thinking, making decisions and taking responsibility for them. Interestingly, it was shown that children educated in chess improve also their language and reading abilities. As the successful player must consider also the opponent’s plans, the kids learn also empathy and improve their social skills.