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"To the ant, a few drops of rain is a flood." Japanese proverb

Planning for Collaboration

Sometimes a unplanned incident can have major consequences. At Purdue University's Child Development Lab School, this incident was a curriculum spark:

"Tara watches from her wheelchair as her preschool peers tear around the playground. Her paraprofessional, Liz, provides playthings and is engaged with her, but Tara is watching the other children play with the wagons. Liz notices the other children's interest in pulling the wagons along the bike trail and calls to them, 'Hey, would you like a ride?' Several would, and they approach Liz and Tara. Turning the wheelchair around to face the wagon, Liz puts the handle in Tara's hand. She has a tight grip, and pulls two children around the bike path. Another child with a second wagon notices this, comes over, and holds on to the first wagon. The train-like vehicle is pulled around the bike path for 45 minutes."

The teaching team at the school was inspired by this collaboration among children and the facilitation that occurred in order to make it happen. This led to a year of planning and experimenting around the challenge of facilitating collaborations.

The story of this experiment is documented in the article, "Facilitating Collaborations Among Children" by Susan Stacey which appeared in the Beginnings Workshop feature on Collaboration in the March 2000 issue of Exchange. To order this issue, go to..

http://mail.ccie.com/go/eed/0441

This article has also been used as the basis for the new Out of the Box Training Kit, "Facilitating Collaborations Among Children," which is available for purchase at:

http://mail.ccie.com/go/eed/0442

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