Recently I agreed to coach chess to a few local elementary schools (K-3 most). The skillset of these kids range from maybe 400 ELO to someone not knowing how a pawn moves or what castling is (which I find troublesome too, since not everyone is at the same pace).

I just lectured my first class today and felt it was somewhat unpleasant. I've never taught chess to a very young and general population. I either lose interest of a few kids when I focus on another group or I find myself going too fast. Anyways, here are some of the factors of the class:

The class size is about 15.
I have one hour per week for a semester.
I have a somewhat dull personality and have no idea how to interact with children.
One specific kid throws pieces and bullies others (can't seem to go on w/o attention).

How do I approach this? I was expecting myself to coach competent chess players (1400-1800 ELO for example), but found myself in this spot instead. When I was told I'm teaching young kids, I wasn't too happy but I convinced myself to give it a shot. Now I find myself in a sick spot. Should I just quit or try to improve in this area?

Maybe I'm just too negative, but it doesn't sound like you enjoy this, and it doesn't sound like the kids enjoy you. And based on the above, I don't see this changing very much too quickly. How stuck are you in this? Can someone else come in? Can you get a clown to help you out?

You have two options, quitting or learning how to teach kids, maybe buy a book about scholar chess or something.

Make the chess fun for the kids. Kids love exaggerations, something such as teaching them how to take queens with pawns. Make it interactive too. If you involve them in the teaching, they will listen. When I was in elementary school, I was in the chess club too and our teacher would sit us down in front of a demo chess board and ask all of us questions. He wouldn't teach for the whole hour, maybe 15 minutes at the most. The other 45 minutes of the hour he would let us play against each other, using a ranking system to motivate us and keep our attention. If a kid acted up, he'd simply send them back to their classroom.

The lesson basically is that you can't teach them for long periods at a time, especially when they're so lowly ranked. And playing is ALWAYS the best way for a kid to get better.

First of all, ohsnapzbrah above is spot on with all his advice so if this is tl;dr then go with that.

I started coaching young (~6 - 12yo) schoolkids only a couple of months ago, so I'm by no means a coaching expert, though I hope I can offer some help.

I have to say, I had a similar reaction to you and was rather discouraged by my first few lessons. To paraphrase a quote from a recent Bruce Pandolfini article: when lessons go well, they're great, but when they go badly, they go really badly. Though I tend to find that the handful of great lessons are enjoyable enough to compensate for the pain of the disasters (the money isn't too bad either). It takes at least a couple of weeks before you establish a rhythm and rapport with the kids.

So I've gone from hating it to kinda liking it - bad lessons are painful, but good ones leave you with a tremendous feeling. If that's good enough for you, read on!

A remedy that sometimes works for me is starting relatively simply (e.g. how pawns move and capture) and then moving logically onto more complex matters (e.g. what a doubled pawn is, pawn promotion, en passant, etc.) in the same lesson. Spend about 5 minutes on each half of the lesson to accommodate young attention spans. It's also possible to ask questions about simple matters that are somewhat challenging even for more experienced players, e.g. 'could a pawn on b2 end up on g8?' or 'can a pawn checkmate a King?' And the inexperienced ones will often surprise you with how much they retain.

So do I. Hasn't stopped me. Besides, you don't want to be one of those teachers who puts on a fake smiley personality out of fear of the kids not liking you. If you're genuine in your desire to help the kids improve, they'll appreciate that even if you aren't a stand-up comedian. They'll warm to you as you develop a relationship over time - in that sense kids are no different to everyone else!

Don't tolerate this sort of thing. Tell the kid off very clearly, letting them know what they did wrong and what you want them to do instead. Get them to sit in the corner or such if necessary. Really bad kids (who are thankfully very rare) can poison a whole class and you shouldn't feel you have to deal with them - usually the school's chess coordinator will be sympathetic if you want to get rid of them. Being a chess coach for young kids actually has a huge component (say 50%) of schoolteachery stuff as opposed to chess stuff. By that I mean you'll need to spend a surprising amount of time just trying to get the kids to behave and listen, to not throw pieces and wrestle each other, to behave like humans rather than savages...

In fact (or more accurately - in my opinion) if you want to be good at teaching young kids chess you're going to also have to take on the responsibility of teaching them to be acceptable members of society; a responsibility that every teacher of young children is taking on, consciously or not. Just getting them to e.g. shake hands before and after each game is not only inducting them into what I would romantically call an ancient ritual that is part of chess tradition, but teaching them about respect and sportsmanship.

Your choice, obviously. No one can tell you if you enjoy teaching kids or not. All I can recommend is that you stick it out for at least a few weeks, then you'll know for sure. The feeling you get when just one little kid remembers something you taught them is really great, though.

Pretty much exactly what I came to post. Seeing your students improve can be addicting since it's just so incredibly satisfying. And you probably won't start to see that for 2 or 3 weeks until you start to get a flow and rapport going. It's kind of the opposite of poker for me - the bad days feel meh but the good days feel just incredible, so at least give yourself a chance to experience the positive before calling it quits.

+1

+! great post too