Facilitating peer tutors in elementary school guidance programs

Peer tutoring is perhaps one of the greatest sources for mobilizing unused potentialities for learning and for controlling the factors which block or retard learning. The failure to use peer tutors in a variety of forms is a major source of waste in schools (Wagner, 1982). Society holds to an ideal that children will grow into responsible citizens who care for and help others. Yet, rarely do schools permit children to assume and practice these responsibilities. Nor do schools systematically supervise or actively shape effective helping behaviors (Jenkins & Jenkins, 1981)