Interview with Woman of the Year: Marisa van der Merwe

Marisa and Willem van der Merwe

My interview this week is with Marisa van der Merwe - who won Woman of the Year 2012 (Education Category)

Thank you for the opportunity to interview you for my blog.



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Please tell us a bit about yourself. Where were you born? Do you have brothers and sisters? Did you learn to play chess as a child? Do any of your siblings play? Where did you meet Willem? Did you know straight away that he was the guy for you? How long have you been married? How many children do you have and what do they do?
I was born in Germiston, Johannesburg, 57 years ago as the first child of two top SA chess players: Piet and Wynie Robbertse – in fact, both have well-known chess tournaments named after them. My dad Piet Robbertse was an actuary and well-known businessman, who taught my mom to play chess after they got married…she eventually became the SA Women’s Chess Champion for 11 years. 
I have a brother and two sisters – of which my brother Piet and baby sister Wyna were both very good provincial chess players.
I am married to my high school sweetheart, Willem van der Merwe, for 37 years now, and although the thrill was there from the first moment we met, I think a life-long relationship is based on more than thrills… I count myself very lucky to have a life-partner with whom I do share all the thrills, but also the same values, dreams and passions in life (note: not necessarily the same taste in movies, art and music!). We have 5½ children…let me explain: Vanessa (a passionate language teacher), Jan-Hendrik (an electronic engineer, like-father-like-son) and Pieter (a medical doctor), plus Elzanne (a ballet dancer, married to Pieter) and the ½ is Annerie Scheepers (pharmacist, engaged to Jan-Hendrik) … and then there is also the son-to-be: Piet Ludick (Vanessa’s life-partner, who is much-loved in our family).
Willem’s father, Jan, turned 90 this year, and we are very honoured that he is also part of our BIG family. AND there are the 3 dogs, 1 cat and 2 fishes that’s part of this family as well. Although the children are now already out of the house, they live close-by and we often eat & spend time together - quite a house-full!
 
How did you get involved in teaching chess?
When my children were small, I was a stay-at-home mom. Their school asked parents to get involved in the chess club, and I offered my help. I immediately LOVED chess training with the young-ones … I enjoyed every moment….and it fired-up a lifelong passion!! Although I don’t consider myself a strong chess player, the age-old game intrigued me because of its many facets: creativity, competitiveness, tactics & strategy, science, history, logic and fun – all combined with the human factor. It is fascinating!
 
What made you decide to use chess as a tool to help children learn better?
It wasn’t really a decision that I made on a day – it was a process that evolved over time and revealed it to me as a wonderful opportunity for all:
I ran a chess-school for 5 -13 year-olds in our home’s garage for more than 20 years. It was a lot of fun & sports, AND amazingly successful: it produced 27 junior national players and 100’s of provincial players! Although I was teaching the children a lot about chess, they were teaching me a lot about children. It came as a surprise to me when parents, teachers and youngsters reported much-improved academic results as well as improvement in self-confidence and maturity: many of my chess students became top-academic performers, captains of different sport teams and leaders in their schools.
Throughout my chess-coaching career, I have always been very analytical, critical and innovative in developing my students, and also my methods of training….you know: thinking about it a lot, reading, sound-boarding and rolling-around/pondering it in the wee hours of the night. As every child’s thinking patterns were unique, my approach to every child also had to be specific. It’s quite technical, but this experience proved to be the basis of chess-as-educational-tool, developing specific mental skills through specific techniques, chessboard-games, “minichess”-games etc. The idea developed and refined over the years through experimentation and on-going learning, to grow into a full program.
Then about 10 years ago I was invited by a top primary school in Pretoria to run a chess-in-school program for their foundation phase , gr.R to gr.3 learners (5 to 9 year-olds) – which gave me the opportunity to test my program in the SA classroom situation. I had to formalise the program – with projects and learner workbooks (4 levels), Teacher Manuals with structured age-specific lesson plans, assessment standards, teacher aids, etc.  It was a challenge and a wonderful learning curve for me: all the children in the foundation phase had to be included in the program and I knew that all children would not find chess easy, so I developed a program that started with the pre-learning concepts of chess – developing mental capacity though fun & games – and had remarkable success to take the benefits of chess to all learners in the classroom! Soon other schools got interested in the program… The non-profit PBO Moves for Life was established in 2010 and they also took the MiniChess program to disadvantaged communities by means of sponsorships. By July 2012 16,000+ children in all provinces of SA were doing the MiniChess program on a weekly basis, with positive feedback from schools, teachers, learner and communities on a regular basis. 
Grandmaster Garry Kasparov visited SA in November 2011, when he witnessed the MiniChess program in action. He was very impressed, and called it the “most scientific program in the world, linking chess with education”. He is interested to take it international by means of the Kasparov Chess Foundations in Europe, N-America, S-America, the Middle-East and Africa. Universities in SA are doing studies on the impact of the MiniChess program on school readiness, development of math-understanding, etc. 
It is my dream to develop the mental capacity of our youth, enabling them to thrive in a fast changing world - and what better way for youngsters to learn than to play games and have fun? We are now in the process of developing the first MiniChess Computer game. I am thrilled and honoured to be part of this fantastic journey!

Please explain to my readers what the Minichess program is about and how it works.
The MiniChess program is a practical-based “chess-in-school-time program” for gr.R to gr.3-learners (5 to 9 year-olds), linking chess with education in fun playful ways. Chess is the game of ideas, and are therefore an excellent teaching tool – rising above all barriers of language, culture, age, gender and even physical disability.
MiniChess is the pre-learning part of chess as a sport: breaking down complex abstract ideas into small simple steps. BUT, more importantly, at the same time it uses fun & games to develop the young mind - to think, reason, plan, solve problems, compete, master spatial concepts and number skills, shape- and pattern recognition, enhance life skills (like inhibiting impulsivity) and self-confidence, creativity, concentration, discipline, and much more …all aspects of school readiness and important early childhood development. The young child’s brain offers a window of opportunity to learn specific skills/concepts which are critical for later learning. The MiniChess program is designed to develop those critical areas by means of play.
The program is well structured, with tried & tested, progressive and age-appropriate Learner Workbooks (4 levels) AND Teacher Manuals with extensive lesson plans, assessment standards, and educational outcomes (including training and support for the teachers). The content and method of learning links-up with school curriculum in the foundation phase. Youngsters that would not normally be interested in chess as a sport, nevertheless enjoys the MiniChess program  a lot! Even teachers who don’t know anything about chess will be able to use this educational tool – and will eventually  also be (entry level) chess teachers! Learners and teachers get much benefit from this in-class program, and are accredited after completing each level. Please visit our website for sample materials, educational studies, photos, etc.

I know you have a large local interest in the program. Can it be used to benefit children in other countries as well? How do people contact you if they want to learn more about MiniChess? I understand that you have plans to take the program online. Can you give us a little sneak preview of what your plans are?
The MiniChess program can be used very effectively by children from different countries and cultures, as it is aligned to the generic educational outcomes for children aged 5 to 9 years old. The Learner Workbooks as well as the Teacher Manuals (with the lesson plans) are available in English at the moment, although translation into different languages are being investigated. Interested persons are welcome to contact us through the MiniChess website.  The MiniChess Software program 1 is under construction, with interest form international chess guru Garry Kasparov, who also wants to get involved. It is an adventure game which takes the player all over the world (and even into space!), linking to the educational outcomes of the MiniChess Level 1-program, with STUNNING artwork, and a wonderful surprise at the end!     

Congratulations again on winning Woman of the Year in the Education category. Your prize included a R100 000 for your program that I know will be well spent. But what plans do you have for the personal prize that you have won as part of the award?
I want to thank Shoprite Checkers again for honouring the work that SA women are doing in their communities, and for the generous contribution of R100,000 towards the MiniChess/Moves for Life programs countrywide.
The additional cash prize is such a WONDERFUL gift – it is not often that a “mother and teacher” gets money to spend on whatever she wants! I shared the prize with my fellow MiniChess workers and my family by treating them to special “celebration dinners” and I bought something special for my garden. The rest is in the bank, for now….

Excerpt: A Praise of Motherhood

MORE DETAILS on the author and book - see post 6 August 2012 below

It was Veterans Day; the Pope spoke into a microphone so the thousands around him could hear his weary voice. And in the airport lounge my sister and I waited for our flight to take off, trying not to listen to the televised broadcast of the Pope’s solemn speech. I held my sister’s hand and heard her say fuck for the first time.
“fuck, do you think she’s going to be okay”
and I said “I don’t know”
and she said “but why aren’t they telling us what’s going on”
“I don’t know”
“I don’t want mom to die”
“I know”
“I’m so scared”
“I know”
and the Pope went on, speaking of the dead, the men whose lives had been lost in a terrible war, and he praised them, their families, for the courage they’d shown. He spoke of Christ, but not much. Sometimes he closed his eyes and paused. From the airport lounge, sitting in front of the television screens, I had to rely on the cameras for a sense of what being there was like. Safe and comfortable and mourning out of patriotic or humanistic duty, in a spirit of contemplation. The Pope did not know that my mother was dying in a little hospital in Portugal. Neither did the lady who announced, on the intercom at the airport, that out of respect for the men who had lost their lives during the war however many decades ago now, we were all invited to stand for two minutes of silence. Everyone else in the lounge stood up, but my sister and I remained in our seats and hugged each other.
As far as I knew, my mother was dying or dead, a small, tanned Portuguese woman with curly dark hair and two dogs, two kids, a lovely loving wonderful lady, all of that sob-story stuff. It turned out that when we were waiting for our flight, she was still alive. She would only die in the evening, after the Pope was done speaking and everyone was having dinner and no longer thinking about the veterans. But nobody had warned me. Nobody had warned anyone. Everybody was on the way to Portugal, my uncle, my grandfather, me and my sister, all of us trying to protect someone. They didn’t tell me what had happened until I arrived in Portugal. I didn’t tell my sister everything I knew, which was next to nothing, because I wanted to think I could protect her. I spoke to my father on the phone and he was in tears: “I will be there when you land,” he said,
and I said:
“but why, what’s going on”
“I’m not sure, I’m not sure, but if I were you… oh, Jesus, if I were you I would brace myself for the worst”
And he broke into tears and hung up. They had been separated fifteen years.
On the plane my sister and I spoke little. I told her it’d be okay. I told her even if the worst happened, I’d be around for her. You’re my little sister. Tell me about Denver. How are classes going? She gave short, bored answers, and she asked me about my life. I told her I’d been about to take the train to Paris from London with a friend when I found out something was wrong with our mom.
“but what’s wrong with her” my sister said
“I don’t know”
“why don’t they just tell us”
“because they’re trying to keep us sane”
“how can I be sane when my mom is dying all of a sudden”
“I really don’t know”
When we arrived in Portugal, and I saw my family standing together waiting for us — my grandparents, my father, my aunt — I knew at once there was no hope.

Hosting an Author on Blog Tour: Phil Jourdan

I am taking part in my first blog tour and I am excited to not only learn about an online tour, but enjoy reading a different kind of genre altogether. Join me on this journey this week.

I am reading The Praise of Motherhood, by Phil Jourdan - the book on the tour this week.

This is my first Memoir of this kind, and so far it is not what I had expected to find. Although I am still reading it, it is a book that I can only describe as an open and brutally honest retelling of a relationship that most of us find difficult to define on the best of days.

The author's relationship with his mother appears to be distant, but the feelings he relates when he hears about her illness and the way the family deals with explaining it to him and his sister, tells you that there is more to this relationship than what it appears to be.

Visit the website to take part in competitions to win prizes that include a copy of the book.

You are welcome to leave any comments here - about the book, the author or the tour.

Author Interviews...Loads of Fun!

There are just five more days in July, and five more days that I will be hosting an interview with Michael Lorde, an author I met online in a Facebook writer's group. Initially I was a bit sceptical (sorry, Michael :-)) about the concept of interviews of other authors on my blog. Now I have been converted.

And its not some lightning strike from above that changed my mind, quite the contrary. Pure human nature, happened.

Another online friend - and his interview is already scheduled for September - suggested that I interview a best selling woman writer of thrillers. It gave me the opportunity to ask questions that are not exactly the usual - tell-me-about-your-book type questions. And besides being kind enough to answer my questions, her sense of humour made the interview worth reading again.

So why will I find more authors to interview on my blog? Because I get to ask funny and weird questions, and I get to meet plenty more people who love books, almost as much as I do, no doubt ;-)

Make a knot in your ear and visit my Interview with... segment in August - you might be pleasantly surprised.

Interrogation of Linzé Brandon - Part 3

(Concluding interview with Prime Suspect in the Case of the Novelist) 

Date 3.14.C

The detective sat back in her chair and planted her boots on the table.

"So how do you come up with your characters?"

I shrugged. "It is not always easy. Most of the time the story just pops into my head and the characters are born as part of the story. I cannot separate the plot from the people in the story, they are each the product of the other."

She planted her feet on the floor and stared at me. "Do you like boots?"

"I do. Why?"

Her lips quirked. "No reason."

"So what else to you like?"

"Aside from writing, of course, I love reading romance novels, and amateur sleuth murder mysteries."

"Your favourite authors?"

I pursed my lips. There were many, but she probably only wanted the shortlist. "Okay, Here goes. Gena Showalter, Maya Banks, Kerrelyn Sparks, Portia da Costa, Lynn Viehl, Christine Warren, Karen Marie Moning, Maggie Sefton, Alexandra Ivy, Jacquelyn Frank, Elizabeth Lynn Casey, Allyson James..."

"That's quite a mix," she interrupted.

"There are many more. I buy all their books and simply love their stories. What can I say?"

"Any other pursuits?"

"Aside from work, which does take up a lot of pleasure time, I paint abstracts, and I am busy learning Chinese brush painting. I looks so simple, but I still have a long way to go before I would consider myself proficient."

She pushed herself to her feet, and collected the tablet from the table. "You're a hopeless romantic." She paused in turning away. "It is probably one of the reasons that people like your book." She smirked and opened the door. "Get out and go write some more stories about people who fall in love."

I was a little surprised, okay, a lot surprised at the dismissal, but then Jessica Stone was not a character that was easily predictable.

"Goodbye, detective."

She waved a hand and disappeared.

All things considering I got off lightly, I was not about to throw that away. It took me a minute to leave the headquarters of the police of Sunn City.

Interrogation of Linzé Brandon - Part 2

(Continue interview with Prime Suspect in the Case of the Novelist) 

Date 3.14.B

“Was it Géra’s Gift?’

I had to smile. “Yes and no. My first stories could probably be considered novellas, but Géra’s Gift is definitely the first full length novel that I wrote.”

“He is a bit young for you, don’t you think? Sure he is gorgeous, smart and ...”

“Are you nuts? Géra Ville is a character in the book. Yes, he is young, but it is his story. I just wrote it.”

Jessica waved her hand. “And the title?”

I shrugged. “It changed a few times. The final title - Géra’s Gift - just felt right, so it stayed.”

She nodded. “So what is this gift?”

I waved a finger at her. “Oh no, not answering that.”

She arched an eyebrow, but did not reply to that. Instead she looked down at the tablet and then back to me. “What is a Grandmaster?”

I organised my thoughts for a few moments before replying. “The Grandmaster is the leader of the magician’s order. The book introduces the Nations of Peace to the reader. Each nation that has magicians and an order, has a Grandmaster that leads them. He or she is not a leader of the nation, for that they have presidents and kings like we do. You know, elected officials or successors to a throne by some predetermined bloodline or something.

The Grandmaster is usually a warrior magician, but not always. In one of the books in the series the Grandmaster is a scholar, not a warrior.”

The eyebrow again. “So there is a series?”

I nodded. “Yes. The series has five sub-series within it: The Grandmasters, The Dragon Masters, The Future Masters, The Strike Masters and The Council of High Lords. The next book, that I am busy doing final editing on, is the first of the Dragon Masters, its called Keeper of the Dragon Sword. And if all goes to plan, it will be released by the end of the year or very early next year.”

“The High Lords, why not some Masters thing again?”

I shrugged. “The High Lords don’t feel like Masters. They don’t need or become Masters like the other books. They are the High Lords, they are who they are. The High Lords also tend to lean more towards the erotica genre, although I wouldn’t call it that exactly.”

She consulted her tablet again. “So the sub-series do not follow one series at a time?”

“No, although it might have started that way, it didn’t turn out that way. The books each stand on its own two feet, but if you want to follow the story in the ‘bigger picture’ so to speak, you have to read them in the order that they are published.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then held up her arm showing me her AI screen. “Any more stories like mine?”

Now I laughed. “No, you are completely unique.”

(Interrogation to be concluded next week)

Interrogation of Linzé Brandon - Part 1

Sunn City Police Headquarters: Interrogation Room #2

Date: 3.14.A MoonZone 1

Interviewer: Detective J Stone

Interviewee: Linzé Brandon               Status: Prime Suspect in the Case of the Novelist

I was escorted into the room and told to sit in the chair on the far side of the table. I sat, and watched the door close, leaving me alone. The room looked like they do on cop shows. Drab. Bare. One table. Two chairs. The mirror-like window flanking the wall facing me. I wondered who was on the other side scrutinizing me.

I have to confess that I was nervous. I have never been interviewed before, by the police no less.

The door opened again.

“I am Detective Jessica Stone,” she said, taking the chair opposite me.

The silver haired detective had startling blue eyes that seemed to miss nothing. She didn’t ask my name, and I didn’t offer it. My nerves didn’t quite settle down.

The blue screen in her left wrist flashed as she moved her hand. It was doubly disconcerting given the fact that this young woman was a character of my own making. I didn’t know what to make of her brusque manner. Did I create her like that? Then again, does one really know the characters that we create in the stories we write, the tales we weave?

She flipped a file on the tablet in front of her, then looked straight at me. Did I just squirm in my seat? Surely not. What did I have to hide?

“What the hell were you thinking?”

I blinked, and wet my dry mouth. “Excuse me?”

She pointed to the tablet on the table between us. It displayed a picture of the cover of my first novel, Géra’s Gift.

“You are an engineer and a project manager. What possessed you to think that you could write? And a romance novel no less?”

I wanted to remain serious, really I did. I was being interrogated after all. But I couldn’t help the pleasure that infused my expression. I could talk about my books and writing forever and a day.

“Why not?" I managed in a relatively normal sounding voice. "I have always loved books. I read them. Many of the ones I own I have read many times. I also collect first editions, when I can afford it, of course. Then someday I had an idea to try and write my own book.”

(Interview to be continued 8 July 2012)