[KiwiBridge]

Bridge fanatics Bill Gates and Warren Buffett donate a million bucks to bridge in schools. Interesting fact: The average age of American Contract Bridge League members is 67. Wow.

USA Today

[mike777]

Interestingly New York and SF said thanks but no thanks keep your money.

I guess the kids are doing great already in those public school systems.

[pclayton]

Nothing surprises me about San Francisco.

[DrTodd13]

You see. The school day is so short and they can't afford to waste one minute playing bridge when they could be endoctrinating children to love the state, obey authority, accept moral relativism, and always use condoms. There are some fascinating quotes by the originators of the US public school system how the purpose of education is to turn 95% of people into mindless happy drones that don't mind doing the same repetitive task over and over. The other 5% will be their liberally educated masters.

[hrothgar]

mike777, on Jan 4 2006, 01:23 AM, said:

Interestingly New York and SF said thanks but no thanks keep your money.

I guess the kids are doing great already in those public school systems.

I suspect that many of the poorer school districts are caught in a Catch-22 situation.

Many underperforming school districts risk loosing federal funding if they are unable to meet the standards set in "No Child Left Behind". According, the resources that they have are prioritized to teaching "important" skills like scoring well on standardized tests.

I'm a firm believer that bridge (or poker for that matter) could be used to improve many aspects of a math curriculeum. With this said and done, I think that you'll have a hard time convincing administrators with this type of argument. (You get more bang for the buck teaching remedial test taking strategies)

[pigpenz]

I told my wife about this and she said the same thing...the problem is schools dont have the people and the legality to run these types of programs. I was asking a friend of hers who coaches what tennis players do to practice in the off season...he said bascially they have to belong to a club to practice.

In america cause of law suits schools very seldom ever let the public access their faciltities after hours, and that includes tennis courts, basketball courts, and grass fields all of which are outside.

Its too bad that it has come down to that

[mike777]

I am a bit lost....does not a million dollars pay for something these days or is this a matter of seperation of state and religion?

Perhaps if they give the money to private religious schools it would be ok?

[awm]

I doubt that any school has a problem with bridge as an after-school activity.

The issue is more with using class time to teach bridge. This is time taken away from learning whatever else kids are doing in school. It's been suggested that learning bridge will help with useful skills like math/reasoning or social/teamwork, and while this seems pretty reasonable to us bridge players there's not all that much solid evidence to back it up. The fact remains that we want to take time from kids coursework to teach them "a game" and I think it's very reasonable for a school district to ask what tangible benefits students are getting from this.

After all, no one's taking time out of classes to teach kids to play Xbox... or are we doing that too now?

[bearmum]

DrTodd13, on Jan 4 2006, 12:40 PM, said:

You see. The school day is so short and they can't afford to waste one minute playing bridge when they could be endoctrinating children to love the state, obey authority, accept moral relativism, and always use condoms. There are some fascinating quotes by the originators of the US public school system how the purpose of education is to turn 95% of people into mindless happy drones that don't mind doing the same repetitive task over and over. The other 5% will be their liberally educated masters.

I was under the impression that teaching ANYBODY about condom use was almost forgiven in USA these days

[ArcLight]

Is this being offered during the school day? Or after, as part of an after school activity?

If during trhe school day I think they will not be successful because many schools devote considerable time to preparing the kids to do well on various state wide tests. This takes up time from even basic lessons and teaching, and the teachers would certainly not want to use the remaining class time for any game.


For after school activities, if they let in one group (Bridge) then would they not have to let in all groups? From the schools point of view, it opens up a can of worms.

In my town there is a chess club that meets at the Library. Maybe that would be a place to start?

[Al_U_Card]

What is better, practice or play? Take young kids and put them in skates,say, and offer them 6 hrs per week of practising skills through repetitive drills or 6 hours of game play where they sit on the bench 5 hours of the six......My bet is that almost all will opt for the game play situation. My feeling is that learning by rote, especially early in the curve, makes you much more proficient. Since bridge is much more participatory (you are only dummy 25% of the time) play scenarios are decent teachers but go back to your debut and think about passing time studying hands and practicing bidding methods........which taught you more?

[pigpenz]

awm, on Jan 4 2006, 02:24 AM, said:

I doubt that any school has a problem with bridge as an after-school activity.

Wrong! the problem is that schools and after school use of facilities is almost non existent anymore. If the school has a contract where the cafeteria is run by a catering company then the contract requires that an employee of the catering company have a representative there and so on, its the letigation issue that cause all of this.

[awm]

pigpenz, on Jan 4 2006, 01:36 PM, said:

awm, on Jan 4 2006, 02:24 AM, said:

I doubt that any school has a problem with bridge as an after-school activity.

Wrong! the problem is that schools and after school use of facilities is almost non existent anymore. If the school has a contract where the cafeteria is run by a catering company then the contract requires that an employee of the catering company have a representative there and so on, its the letigation issue that cause all of this.

I'm not sure where you're getting this information. Looking at several high schools, they seem to have myriad clubs and activities meeting after school in classrooms. My own high school, for example, has 34 clubs meeting on school grounds, including all sorts of things like a dance club, mock trial, future educators of america, a school newspaper, and, yes, a bridge club.

Looking at several other high school web pages, this seems to be fairly typical. Keep in mind these are public high schools with nothing particularly special about them (they are not magnet schools or other selective academies).

Of course, things may be different in inner city schools, especially those in very poor and/or dangerous communities.

[barmar]

awm, on Jan 4 2006, 02:24 AM, said:

The fact remains that we want to take time from kids coursework to teach them "a game" and I think it's very reasonable for a school district to ask what tangible benefits students are getting from this.

After all, no one's taking time out of classes to teach kids to play Xbox... or are we doing that too now?

While we don't teach video games in school, don't we teach games like baseball, football, and dodgeball? Of course, the ostensible goal of these activities isn't really learning the game, but the physical exercise that comes from playing them (a few students will do well enough that this can be considered "vocational training").

What school systems need to realize is that games like bridge and chess will work as analogous exercises for the mind. You can get more kids to exercise their bodies by letting them play sports than by forcing them to do jumping jacks; similarly, kids can learn planning, concentration, and other mental activities that will serve them well in life by playing card and video games.

I recently read an excellent book, Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter that discusses how many of today's popular activities, such as video games and reality TV, are actually good mental exercises, not mindless pabulum as if often thought.

[Al_U_Card]

I agree but would add that PARENTS need to realize this and use the school system as well as their own free time to promote and encourage like activities. No one influences kids more than their parents.........why not make use of that.

[Al_U_Card]

Indeed if Bill and Warren were truly interested, they might give a million to Fred & Co. to develop a co-site with learning software to teach beginners (a la Jude Goodwin) the fundamentals and get them started. Every school and kid has access to a computer and the internet so wtp......

[Rebound]

barmar, on Jan 4 2006, 03:32 PM, said:

Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter that discusses how many of today's popular activities, such as video games and reality TV, are actually good mental exercises, not mindless pabulum as if often thought.

Sounds like bs to me.

[42]

Hi!
It is very generous to donate so much money for a bridge project, in which way shall it be spent?
I don't know the American school system, here in Germany we had discussions about bridge in schools, too. There are several problems:
- bridge can only be taught after the "normal" school program,
- the pupils feel they are tired and think they need their time for other things than training on their brain, they want to relax (in which way ever...). A school day is hard (I am far from discussing the nonsense of the German school system on this place, there is a lot that can be said),
- the teachers feel they do already enough, they are tired, too. The willingness of offering time or knowledge or so for free decreases against 0, all suffer on a high level ("living is so expensive these days", and the needs are numerous),
- you need a teacher who plays bridge and is willing to teach bridge besides his normal teaching time. That has to do with insurance. It is not easy to go to school and and offer lessons for free for a non teacher here (I tried that),
- a room problem: many rooms are used in the afternoon / evening from other institutions (courses for adults in pc programs, languages, painting and so on).
My theory is that something must be "en vogue" and chic, then more and more people want it which enlarges the pressure. Only when the pressure is high enough, things change. But I have no idea how to make bridge "chic".... Perhaps some videos showing a bridgeclub where Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue, Angelina Jolie and Bratt Pitt, Paris Hilton (.....!??....), Prince William, Madonna and so on play together in harmonie (...) will help. And the background bridgesong should become a no. 1 hit, then I see chances