BROOKLYN CASTLE tells the stories of five members of the chess team at a below-the-poverty-line inner city junior high school that has won more national championships than any other in the country.

The film follows the challenges these kids face in their personal lives as well as on the chessboard, and is as much about the sting of their losses as it is about the anticipation of their victories.

Ironically, the biggest obstacle thrust upon them arises not from other competitors but from recessionary budget cuts to all the extracurricular activities at their school.

BROOKLYN CASTLE shows how these kids’ dedication to chess magnifies their belief in what is possible for their lives. After all, if they can master the world’s most difficult game, what can’t they do?

http://www.brooklyncastle.com/about/synopsis


The School
I.S. 318

Brooklyn, New York’s Intermediate School 318 is a testament to the transformational powers of chess, quality afterschool programming, and a dedicated staff. The school’s chess program began as a loose gathering of chess enthusiasts – the “Chess Nuts,” as they called themselves – in the early ‘90s. Elizabeth Vicary, then working for nonprofit Chess-in-the-Schools, arrived at I.S. 318 in 1999 to coach a team of just 10 kids who’d never before competed in a tournament. By the end of her first year, the school had a National title and a reason to be excited about chess.

The program expanded exponentially over the following years, and today I.S. 318 boasts a team of nearly 100 students and a display case showcasing a staggering number of chess trophies. The school currently holds more National chess titles than any other junior high school in the country; offers 45 afterschool programs in subjects as diverse as robotics, botany and tennis; and is one of New York City’s most successful schools.



James A Black, certified chess master, is the skinny black kid in front.

The school’s conquering heroes — its chess players — were blowing off steam. On Sunday, in Minneapolis, they became the first middle school team to win the United States Chess Federation’s national high school championship. The team, mostly eighth graders, beat out top high schools like Stuyvesant in Manhattan and Thomas Jefferson in Alexandria, Va.

The victory burnishes what is already a legend in the chess world. At I.S. 318, more than 60 percent of the students come from families with incomes below the federal poverty level. Yet each stairwell landing bristles with four-foot chess trophies, and the school celebrities are people like James A. Black Jr. A 13-year-old with twinkly eyes and curly eyelashes, James is not a football hero or a valedictorian, but a certified chess master who gently corrects his teachers on the fine points of strategy.

I.S. 318 is a perennial powerhouse, often sweeping middle school national championships against exclusive schools where more students can afford private lessons... The school placed second in the high school competition in 2011. This year, I.S. 318 and Manhattan’s elite Hunter College High School tied for first, but I.S. 318 took home the first-place trophy because its opponents in the tournament won more games than Hunter’s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/nyregion/at-brooklyns-is-318-the-cool-kids-are-the-chess-champs.html?pagewanted=all

I was just coming to post another snippet from CNN here:

http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/19/brooklyn-castle-students-seek-solutions-for-every-problem-on-the-chessboard/

i read something recently where some economist linked the rise of gang culture to declines in funding for city & school afterschool programs.

tried to find it again but so far no luck.

Kids want to be active and have meaningful things to do. If there are programs, they will join them. If not, they'll create their own activities.

Definitely planning on seeing this. Thanks starry

Such inspiring kids!

Yes, this is possible. If only this were true in more schools!

It was loads of fun. The cool kids would often be found playing chess in the halls during off periods. My favorite spot was on the floor of the elevator room on the top floor. A school of supergeeks is a beautiful thing.

Thank you for posting this story. I will be going to this film when it comes out.

Lanier Middle School in Houston has a very good chess team and the chess team was the cool kids. Lanier is a magnet school and so is in a very different situation compared this school. My son attended Lanier for one year and went to a couple of chess tournaments. One of his classmates at this school was a national master by his senior year in high school.

We hear all of this negative stuff about kids in the US being way behind all the other countries in the world, but really--given the opportunity, they just soar!

May this sort of thing become infectious!

part of pop culture. The trouble with pop culture is that its values are constantly shifting. Something that was so fashionable as to be almost compulsory a few years ago is considered ridiculous now.

Chess is an intellectual game that builds reasoning and planning skills. Music, theater, dance, and visual art take kids outside themselves and foster their emotional intelligence. Forensics, especially debate, builds self-confidence and develops the "bullshit detector." Home ec. and shop, two courses that are often cut when budgets are tight, teach practical skills that let us avoid mass corporate consumerism to a greater degree than if we didn't have those skills. If you can cook from scratch, sew and repair your own clothes, or make wooden and metal objects, that's a kind of freedom.

Unlike team sports, which are sacred cows in this country, all of these can be life-long activities. My stepfather, a professional musician, played the piano when he was well into Alzheimer's. A friend of our family who lived to be 103 painted lovely watercolors. The community theater in a town where I used to live had a frequent participant in his 80s who tried to appear in every production, even if it was just in a crowd scene. I can even think of professionals in these fields who literally worked till shortly before their deaths.

how newspapers always printed weekly stories about 'star athletes' but never printed weekly stories about star academic students.

Multiple rounds of applause.

And their school for SUPPORTING THEM!!!

I played chess in a school that worshipped football & basketball, where the jocks that played them walked on water--but anything that took intelligence or sheer perseverance wasn't even acknowledged. It infuriates me to this day. When the school eliminated forensics in a budget cut, but increased $$ for sports, I wrote some blistering letters to the school board and the local fish-wrap newspaper, but of course I was looked upon as some sort of unpatriotic idiot in town for years after.

they were so cool they elected me as their president. well the chess club consisted of the stoners and that`s why they elected me.

to be fair they were the best chess players in the college

Current pedagogical practice largely prevents effective learning from occurring.

Teaching to a test as in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) or Race to the Top is at odds with effective learning.

I am being critical of the system, not of the teachers, who are as hampered in teaching as students are hampered in learning.

I'd also like to see more schools teaching duplicate bridge. It teaches partnership as well as strategy. And IMHO, you don't have to be born with a natural talent for it to become pretty good. It just takes practice and experience.

group of friends. We had the highest grades and ran all the clubs. A couple were even cheerleaders, who cheered for the boys' high school athletic teams, but that's not why they were part of our crowd. We didn't know we were the cool kids though until years later at a reunion when one of our teachers called our group, the "in" crowd of our class. Of course, it was an all girl's school which might have had something to do with it.

I never knew what the mean girls, cheerleader, clique was all about until I went to college and got indoctrinated into the ways of what was considered the cool kids then and still now, I guess. Frankly, I didn't care and I did join the chess club to meet kids who were like me.

Thank you for this post.