Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 19, 1993 TAG: 9302190083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
TALE OF 3RD-GRADER UP FOR AN OSCAR
Peter Gwazdauskas doesn't think he's a star, though he knows when he's the center of attention.An 11-year-old with Down syndrome, Peter smiles when he remembers the camera lights and his new film-crew friends who spent a few weeks in his class last year.
But his mother, Judy Gwazdauskas, isn't sure her youngest son even knows that the film, which was just nominated for an Oscar for documentary short subject, will be on national television.
"Educating Peter," a short film by State of the Art Inc., will air on Home Box Office in May. The film shows Martha Ann Stalling's 1992 third-grade class during Peter's first year in something called "inclusive education."
Until last year, Peter had been in special-education classes with other students with disabilities.
But in third grade, things changed, just as techniques in dealing with physically and mentally handicapped students changed. Peter and other students have started spending nearly all of their time in regular classes. The teachers have received help from aides and at Gilbert Linkous Elementary School, guidance from special-education teacher Kenna Colley.
" `Educating Peter' will show just how much of a difference inclusion can make," said Ray Van Dyke, principal at Gilbert Linkous.
When Peter comes home from a day of classes, he doesn't want to talk about the movie. He's interested in his snack - a Popsicle, an apple and two crackers.
But he smiles at the mention of the movie and his friends, just as he smiles if you ask him about basketball practice at the town recreation center, scheduled for later in the day.
"Peter was just being himself during the film," Judy Gwazdauskas said Thursday. "To me, the other kids are the real stars. But they were just being themselves, too." The crew filmed Peter's behavior throughout the year, showing how it changed.
"What it shows more than anything is how his classmates coped and helped him to cope," said his mother. "That was the important part."
But she had a hard time watching the film, especially the beginning where her son pushed, shoved or hurt other kids to get attention.
"The kids were afraid of him at first, and that was so hard for me to picture," she said. "He was smaller than the other third-graders."
A class picture from the family scrapbook shows Peter in the front row, typically reserved for the shorter kids, smiling.
When Peter started third grade, he made loud noises to get attention. He looked different and he rarely spoke. When he did, it was hard to understand what he said.
"The first day I met him he bent down my finger and tried to strangle me," said Artie Keown, 10 and now one of Peter's best friends. "But later on, the teacher moved him closer to me. Then he wasn't scared of me and I wasn't scared of him."
Over the year, Peter's behavior changed, and that is what the film shows, along with the advances made by both Peter and his classmates.
It shows the rough times, Stallings said, "but we needed to go through those rough times to get to the good times."
"I knew it was good, but I couldn't tell if the end outweighed the beginning," Judy Gwazdauskas said.
Others who have seen the film say it does, that it shows what Peter is capable of, and that he and the other students learn from each other.
Peter can answer homework questions from My Weekly Reader. He knows where whales live and how big they are. During class, his job was to tell stories so that the other kids could write them down.
"Inclusion" was among the vocabulary words that appeared on the wall last year.
And the children have learned not to be afraid of people who are different, Gwazdauskas said.
She and her husband, Frank, began talking with the school about inclusion some time ago. When they decided to go ahead with it, they met with Ray Van Dyke and a team of teachers and parents before the school year began.
"Mr. Van Dyke said that they wanted Peter at this school, that this was where he belonged," Judy Gwazdauskas said. It was the first time she had heard those words from a school official.
Each week during class, a different student was in charge of working with Peter and helping him. And as they became closer to each other, they became close, too, with the film crew from State of the Art Inc. that shot more than 60 hours of footage to find the perfect 30 minutes.
Tom Goodwin, one of the film's co-producers, learned he had cancer during the production.
At Thanksgiving, after the filming was complete, the class was sending get-well cards and notes to his house. Students sent letters to his wife in December when he died.
They became close to Geradine Wurzburg, the other co-producer, too, and to the camera crew that was such a distraction during its weeks in the classroom.
Peter seemed to thrive with the attention, holding up his work for the camera. When he was practicing his "O's" on a piece of paper, he drew some on the lens, as well. (Fortunately, the crew was prepared for dealing with children. The lenses were protected by Plexiglas.)
"It was tough to pretend the cameras weren't there," Keown said. "I'd start writing my best and doing everything my best because they were there."
Judy Gwazdauskas had joked with Stallings, who has taught in the county for a decade, about what gowns they would wear to the Oscars. Wurzburg had said long ago she had hopes for the film.
Gwazdauskas doubts her family will be on the guest list, as Van Dyke doubts the school board would fund a field trip to the Oscars.
But many will be watching the program on March 29. And HBO's Tim Chandler said Thursday there will be a local premiere for the third-graders and their parents.
The Oscars likely will be the lunchroom topic the rest of this week.
Keown confided Thursday he thought the listing in the paper was a typo at first. "I brought it to school and showed it to all of my friends who were in that class. They didn't believe me, either, at first, but then they were excited."
After the filming, each student in Stalling's class received a shirt. On the back, there was a star, beneath it, the words: "Educating Peter."
"I feel like a movie star, pretty much, whenever I wear that shirt," Keown said.