educating peter essay

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“Educating Peter” by Thomas G. Goodwin, Movie Review Example

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This movie review is based on a Goodwin film of a Down’s syndrome child that faces many obstacles whilst attending a regular elementary school. Some of the obstacles the child faces are the inability to cope with regular standards of teaching levels initially, engaging with other children socially and the inability to control his anti-social behaviour patterns. As the movie progresses so does the child’s ability to progress in school at a level closer to a ‘normal’ level which eventually brings him acceptance from his teachers and peers.

Peter has strong abilities including the ability to sing the most of the Pledge of Allegiance, the ability to be interactive whilst learning his lessons, the ability to take criticism from peers and teachers, the ability to read and write with minimal assistance, the ability to work on school projects and the ability to run and catch balls. His social skills develop to a strong level towards the end of the movie. These are exemptions of his cognitive and social skills.

Peter has brought a new meaning of abnormal to the view of the community. The community has viewed Down’s syndrome children as being ‘less than and dumb’. Peter has changed their view by being able to learn and progress throughout the movie whilst being able to contribute to the classroom interaction. The social environment in which he has accomplished this is conducive to his disability.  The expectations for his disability were very low but he has shown everyone that he can do a lot in terms of learning and interacting with other children. He has lots to offer in terms of intelligence and caring and compassion. The teacher has actually changed her first opinion of him which was that he was slow to that of he can learn and mingle with the other children in a positive manner.

Peter has demonstrated self-advocacy skills by wanting to show off his school work to the class, understanding that he should take control of his behavior and not bother the other children and by putting away his own materials with no assistance from others. Further these were experiences of his innate ability to profess linguistic skills despite his disability. The other children in the classroom, especially one young girl has aided Peter with his work often. She learned to use her language skills to tap into his form of communicating though not always traditional. Some kids called him a bully at the beginning of the movie because of his rough attitude and his mannerisms of kicking and pushing, but towards the end of the movie his change of behavior has gained him respect and loyalty from other children. His behaviors were constant of what physical symptoms are shown with this type of diagnosis. Peter’s compassion from other children has gained him best friends by the end of the year. The children no long feel that they are scared of him, rather they are happy to have Peter in their classroom as a friend. Peter showed the children as well as the teacher he had the ability to use his social and cognitive skills in a positive manner conducive to a normal learning environment.

Goodwin, Thomas G. [Review of the movie Educating Peter ].

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TV REVIEW : Valuable Lessons in ‘Educating Peter’

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Although airing for the first time on television, the half-hour “Educating Peter” (at 9:30 tonight on HBO) was released to theaters just long enough to qualify for--and win--this year’s Academy Award for best achievement in documentary short subjects.

This deceptively simple little film, produced and directed by Thomas C. Goodwin and Gerardine Wurzburg, observes a yearlong effort to mainstream Peter, a boy with Down’s syndrome, into a third-grade classroom at a public school. Peter is there because a controversial federal law requires that children with learning disabilities be allowed to attend regular schools--as more than 60,000 disabled children are now doing.

The reasons for the controversy are immediately clear as soon as Peter joins the class. His loud vocal outbursts continually interrupt lessons and he frequently hits, kicks and shoves his bewildered and frightened classmates. It seems misguided at best that the welfare of this one needy child should come at the expense of others who are forced to deal with Peter’s unpredictability, or that the teacher must spend extra time with Peter--not on academics, but simply trying to integrate him into the classroom routine.

Yet by year’s end, Peter is not only following directions and participating in classroom activities, he has been accepted by his peers, who loudly cheer his small successes, protect and help him. His teacher, initially skeptical and worried, has found his progress especially rewarding.

One little girl says, “He changed, because we changed. . . . You think you’re teaching Peter things, but Peter’s teaching you things.”

It’s clear that although Peter has learned academics and social skills, his classmates have absorbed even more valuable life lessons: compassion, empathy and responsibility.

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clock This article was published more than  31 years ago

EDUCATING PETER, AND OTHERS AS WELL

"This is a film that families should watch together," said Gerardine Wurzburg of her Oscar-winner, "Educating Peter," airing Wednesday at 9:30 on HBO. "You so rarely go inside a classroom on television in quite this way."

"There are so many messages about acceptance, about change. And there's a truth to it. My experience, with children from second grade to high school, is that they quit moving when that show goes on. They're so entranced by it and by its honesty that they feel as though it's communicating very directly to them."

Enough members of the Academy shared her enthusiasm for "Educating Peter" that on March 29, Wurzburg found herself onstage accepting the coveted statuette. Her husband, Grady Watts, who edited the film, was in the audience, and their two daughters, 8 and 11, were watching across town with pals.

Last week, Wurzburg was due back in Blacksburg, Va., for another tribute, a special dinner for the children she filmed, their parents and other local dignitaries.

"Educating Peter" is a documentary short subject, one of those small films that win awards, but that hardly anyone gets to see. It was made by Wurzburg's company, State of the Art Inc., in Adams-Morgan.

"Educating Peter" is the story of a Down's syndrome child, Peter Gwazdauskas, from his first days in the third grade in Blacksburg to the end of the school year. But Wurzburg is quick to say that the story is not so much about Peter as it is about "inclusion," the process of putting a disabled child directly into a classroom in his own neighborhood with children his own age. It is a move beyond "mainstreaming," where such children are educated in separate classrooms, sometimes in nearby schools, sometimes in schools where they must be bused.

During the year that Wurzburg filmed, Peter learned a great deal about getting along with people. He moved from kicking his classmates at the beginning of the year to honoring his favorites with bear hugs on the last day of school. His classmates in turn went from wariness to helping restrain him on occasion and eventually cheering him on as he progressed.

"A lot of the behaviors you saw in the show really are on the back burner now," said Wurzburg. This year, he is in fourth grade with some of the same youngsters.

The parents of the third graders also saw a change in their children.

"Families talked to me about how the conversations at the dinner table were different this year," said Wurzburg, "talking about really substantial issues, about having someone who's different, about accepting someone who's different. That's the thing that I find so appealing."

Peter's teacher, Martha Ann Stallings, also learned a lot, including when to ask for help. So that Peter did not dominate her classroom, she asked for a full-time assistant to be with Peter, said Wurzburg, and a specialist who worked both with him and his teachers. "The show," she said, "is a tribute to good teaching."

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Educating Peter

The instructor and students, in my view, used proper approaches to include Peter in class activities. In most cases, children with Down’s syndrome do not communicate with others in an acceptable manner (DES International 1). The teacher’s strategies for dealing with Peter, on the other hand, were successful in ensuring that the other students successfully socialized with him. For example, during classroom activities, the teacher encouraged students to openly mingle with Peter. As a result, the students’ views of Peter’s unusual actions changed. Notably, the students were acquainted with Peter, ensuring that he engaged in classroom events in the same way as the other students. Precisely, during the early periods of Peter’s enrolment in the class, the teacher restrained the learners from retaliating against Peter’s violent actions. The teacher’s decision to restrain the learners on how to handle Peter’s actions efficiently aided in creating a proper relationship between the learners and Peter thereby offering the peter the opportunity to learn.

The teacher also showed proper parental care to Peter thereby making him fit in the classroom norms and learn. In most cases, Peter engaged in some inappropriate activities such as throwing learning materials at others, climbing stands and refusing to follow the teacher’s instructions. The teacher did not punish Peter for his unbecoming behaviors and instead ignored him and encouraged other learners to ensure that Peter is safe from any form of injuries. The motherly strategy that the teacher used played a crucial role in motivating Peter to come to school and desist from the activities that were inappropriate. In my opinion, I perceive the teacher’s motherly care for Peter played a critical role in ensuring that he was in class and undertook the activities that other learners were executing.

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I am also of the opinion that the teacher used appropriate methods to help Peter fit in the classroom environment because she used proper communication strategies while interacting with him. Notably, the teacher, after discovering that Peter was suffering from Down’s syndrome used low tone while communicating with Peter thereby ensuring that the latter felt welcomed in the classroom. Besides, the teacher consistently repeated words while talking to Peter. Research shows that learners with Down’s syndrome learn properly when a teacher as them to repeat or rephrase instructions (DSAHRC 1). Indeed, the close attention that one provides to a child with unique behaviors is necessary for ensuring that the person understands the directions that others are giving to them.

As previously described, I acknowledge that the teacher’s strategy significantly helped in making Peter become part of the class. However, I feel that the teacher did not efficiently use demonstration techniques to help Peter learn new concepts. The children that are suffering from Down syndrome have a low intellectual capacity and do not promptly synthesize the information that they receive from other sources (DES International 1). Therefore, it is necessary to use various observational methods to help the learners suffering from the defect above acquire new concepts. In my opinion, the teacher ought to have increased the sessions in which she demonstrated the new ideas to efficiently increase Peter’s ability to adequately learn the new concepts in his class and interact with the other learners in his classroom without experiencing various social challenges.

The behavior of the students also played a crucial role in ensuring that Peter became part of the class. Indeed, the children had discovered that Peter had improper actions and it was necessary to engage in activities that could help him learn. Notably, the children tolerated Peter’s distractive behaviors thereby ensuring that he did not continue the adverse practices such as kicking and strangling the other learners. The pupils’ ability to tolerate Peter’s distractive behaviors significantly contributed to latter’s adjustment into the classroom life. For instance, through the other learner’s tolerance, Peter learned that it was inappropriate to engage in violent activities. Besides, the learners’ attempts to restrain Peter from continuing his violent actions against his colleagues significantly influenced him and made him positively change his behaviors and positively interact with others in the classroom. Consequently, by the mid of the learning period, Peter had turned his violent acts and was adequately interacting with his peers, both in the class and in the fields.

In my opinion, the positive reinforcements that the learners used while handling Peter were also useful in ensuring that he adequately engaged in the classroom activities. An analysis of the behaviors that Peter exhibited indicates that initially, he had minimal interest in participating in classroom activities. However, the learner’s use of positive reinforcements in the cases where Peter engaged in proper activities significantly helped in changing his attitudes towards the classroom activities. Precisely, the learners’ decisions to clap whenever Peter followed the instructions that his teacher gave aided in making him adjust to the requirements in the classroom. Furthermore, the learners helped Peter fit into the class by showing that they had high interest in the activities that he undertook thereby motivating him to only engage in activities that pleased his peers.

Finally, the learners in Peter’s class significantly helped him to improve his attention span while in class. The people living with Down’s syndrome usually suffer from short attention span that adversely affects their abilities to cope with others while in the learning processes (DES International 1). For example, in the initial stages, Peter would tell his teacher that he was feeling sleepy, which is an indication that he was suffering from short attention span. However, the learners helped him fit in the class environment by making him active whenever his concentration levels in the classroom activities declined. For instance, the learners called Peter’s name whenever he became inactive in class.

In conclusion, the strategies that Peter’s teacher used helped in ensuring that he actively engaged in the classroom activities. As discussed in this essay, Peter’s teacher showed parental care thereby ascertaining that Peter did not undertake activities that were perilous to his health. Also, the teacher used appropriate methods of communication while addressing Peter. Finally, Peter’s teacher helped him cope with other learners by creating an environment that allowed other learners to socialize with Peter. Similar to the teacher, Peter’s classmates also played a critical role in ensuring that he adequately engaged in the classroom activities. As evident in this essay, the pupils’ tolerance of Peter’s distractive behaviors was essential in his adjustments into the social life. Also, the learners immensely helped Peter to increase his attention span. Therefore, both the teacher and the pupils were integral to the improvement in Peter’s life.

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Works Cited

Down syndrome Aim High Resource Center-DSAHRC. “Tips for teaching students with Down’s syndrome.” 2011 Dec. 20th. Web. 2017, Dec. 14th

Down’s syndrome Education International (DSE International). “Development and Learning.” n.d. 2017 Dec. 14th

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Educating Peter Notes

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Peter has down syndrome About his time going to a normal school Federal law saying disabled kids educated in regular classes 3rd grader in Virginia looks I was really scared, he was making these loud One girl is pretty much teaching him and helping him do we have him in our class? He probably gonna learn Show and Tell: Other kids helping Peter Teacher struggling Peter just understand Peter is very physical with the other kids (pushing in the bathroom) Week 3: Peter is sitting trying to lick people was inconsistent, a little Very aggressive and physical (kicking people in face, pushing) Kids are scared not upset Peer planning: Teaching kids how to take control over the classroom Week 7: Fewer outbursts Kids working better with him Teacher seems to be able to talk to him he jumps on back and Peter talks to Andy and hugs him and says sorry Humming sound and smiling after school 4th Month Singing and participating in class Has become a part of classroom Changed my expectations.. I expect you to do some of these things because I know you can do He thinks he is stupid or says he is Felt lost at times because he do what everyone else was doing The girls took on the mother role with Peter 6th Month Writing Understood what people were doing Less outbursts Started reading, pasting, running and catching 7th month Does not want to put away board game Outbursts at the end of the day when he had to go home and leave his friends 8th month Participating in physical activity changed because we Kids helped him, changed their minds about him is teaching you things and we might be teaching him how to do things but teaching us how to Last day of school Says pledge of allegiance and tries to do his best! (compared to first day) Sining Kids are cheering him on been a really joyful Particularly hard for Peter to say goode to his friends

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Course : Intro to Psychology (PSYCH 111)

University : university of michigan, this is a preview.

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