Educating Peter Movie Analysis

This documentary, Educating Peter, followed a special needs boy with Down Syndrome named Peter into a third-grade classroom at a public school. Peter was enrolled in a traditional school because federal law stated that children with special needs must be educated with regularly developing students in traditional schools. Originally, Peter was in a special needs school with autistic/special needs students. In the beginning when I first started watching this film I had mixed thoughts. In my personal opinion I didn’t understand why at the expense of other students who are forced to deal with Peter's unpredictability, or that Mrs. Stallings must spend extra time with Peter--not on academics, but simply trying to integrate him into the classroom …show more content…
My internal conflict comes from the fact that all of these great gains were accompanied by some unpleasant times. Although many of the children were physically harmed by Peter on a daily basis. It brought me to tears at the same time as the film showed a child being kicked in the face by Peter for no apparent reason. I thought to myself what if this same situation happened to Peter would he have been disciplined. It seemed periodically throughout the film sometimes, the teacher did not even notice or react to Peter she relied on the students to handle …show more content…
Perhaps, this would have curbed his physical outbursts. I also feel that parent-teacher communication is key in helping to create school success. I understand that this documentary could not show everything, However, it did not seem to me that Peter’s parents were aware of some things that were happening in the classroom or maybe that part was edited in the film. Although some children were physically harmed by Peter on a regular basis. Eventually, Peter made great academic growth and progress and his classmates had learned to accept him. These children grew to love Peter and even were sad the school year was ending. Mrs. Stallings even stated that she would move to the next grade level if she had to work with Peter. Peter was just fine towards the end of the school