I would say this. I absolutely value cooperation, team building, social skills, and all of those things. I do agree that these are part of school. But if a child were being used DAILY and explicitly as "social helper teacher's aides" as some bright children are used daily as academic helpers, I would find that objectionable and sad. These children are all there for their own academic gain. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
You can call me old-fashioned and conservative if you like. (It would be a somewhat new sensation for me!)
I also think that it's important to add that it's not fair to *always* ask a child to help their classmates as a way of filling up the extra time that child has in class because they finished their work early and already understand it in place of giving the child more challenging work
FTR, this was what was being tried with my DD in K. "Oh, she finishes early and she always knows everything, so we have her help the other children, but it isn't going very well."
