Malinda Words: Teachers and students sometimes reverse roles

I remember Muditha Hettigama when he was around 9 or 10 years old. Grade 4 at the time, if I remember correctly. A frail-looking asthmatic kid. I was his teacher by default. It so happened that I was the senior chess captain of the school who was forced to coach the juniors; the junior coach having decided to give up worldly pleasures in favour of the more sensible and infinitely more arduous pursuit of truth.

At the time I didn’t know anything about coaching and I knew only very little about chess. I didn’t have a clue about mentoring kids. Nothing of child psychology either. And no time to learn such things ‘on the job.’ They were a few years younger and shorter. ‘Seniority’ helped I suppose. Height too. What really counted was the fact that the boys under my charge were really bright. Moreover, a few of them had been ‘taught the moves’ and more, privately, by excellent coaches, especially the late M N Johar, who was quite a strong player, a keen student of the game and knew how to nurture young kids.

That team didn’t win the All-Island Under 15 Chess Championship that year. St Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia did. I believe they came second. Three members of that team eventually became very strong players, Rasika ‘PPR’ Perera, Jayendra De Silva, Akhila Amarawickrama and Muditha Hettigama, the last winning the National Championship a few years later. PPR led the team to the championship the following year and the school would win the junior trophy for 6-7 consecutive years. Good players. Nurtured well by older siblings and private coaches. So good that in all the years I ‘coached’ my role was mostly as a motivator. Just for the record, the senior team also won the national schools title in all those years, not surprisingly because there was a steady stream of strong junior players making their way up the ranks.

Many of them helped coach the younger kids. Some of them took on coaching jobs in other schools after leaving school, part time assignments while completing their degrees, some on a voluntary basis and some for a nominal fee. Muditha coached Bishop’s College for a while, but he is best known as the head coach of his alma mater, Royal College.

It’s been forty years since the title ‘coach’ was first thrust upon me. My association with chess in that school has been minimal during this time. I kept myself informed, attended events, helped raise funds when necessary and on the rare occasion delivered pep talks before an important tournament. Until about five years ago. Finding myself in the happy circumstances of being an unemployed graduate for the sixth or seventh time, I thought that coaching might be a good idea. Voluntary, as always, of course.

It was more than 30 years since I last played in a tournament with any degree of seriousness. Chess theory advances rapidly and compared to the last century at exponential rates. Thanks to chess engines, enormous databases of games and unimaginable online resources which include ever-improving training methodologies, the work of chess coaches has gotten easier. And harder. It is not easy to keep up with new knowledge and training techniques. I just can't do it.

So, the default option. Kids. Beginners. Aged 10 or less. Manageable, I thought. The basics can be taught. Interest in the game can be maintained. Relatively easy. And as they start getting a grip on how beautiful this game is, as they become fluent in basic tactics, it is not too difficult to nudge them to explore and understand more complex principles. Up to a point. Beyond this point, there’s Muditha Hettigama. Head Coach, no less.

He’s been at it for more than a quarter of a century, seeing the tiny tots grow taller, more skilled and competitive. He’s seen them move from the lower age group categories to the senior team, nurtured them into sportsmen, gently helped them grow into citizens of integrity and strong notions of social responsibility and justice.

All around him are coaches with far less experience and competence making millions, literally. Muditha charges not a cent. And this in a country where paid school coaches arm-twist parents to send their children to their private classes.

So I put the kids through the basic paces, frequently consulting my ‘student’ who is now my ‘boss,’ so to speak, my teacher in fact. He moves in at the right time and takes them to levels I could never reach. The frail boy who I had to discipline on a few occasions, even dropping him from the team for poor attendance, would nevertheless surprise me by defeating much older players who were, on paper, stronger. Now he amazes me with his coaching and nurturing. He knows kids. He knows teenagers. He understands temperaments. He notes preferred styles, points weaknesses and suggests ways of building on strengths. And when it comes to team tournaments, he’s a master strategist.

I watch. I ask. I listen. I learn. I feel blessed to have a teacher like Muditha Hettigama.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

13 March 2023

Teachers and students sometimes reverse roles

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