TV REVIEW : Valuable Lessons in ‘Educating Peter’

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.