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Kindergarten Is Not a Democracy
Bonnie Goldstein just posted a great "Hot Document"—the police report filed by the mom in Port St. Lucie, Fla., whose 5-year-old son was "voted out" of his kindergarten class by his teacher and classmates because he was disruptive. I was grateful to read the police report because my reaction to the initial story was, "There's GOT to be more to this." Alas, the only thing the complaint clarified for me was that the teacher meant for the little boy to be dismissed from the class for the day, not forever. But how is a 5-year-old, especially an autistic 5-year-old, supposed to figure that out?
It does seem that the little boy was a distraction to his classmates, and the fact he was "in the process of being diagnosed with autism," as the article says, would explain that. I would hope that, had the voting-off incident not happened, the school and his parents would have worked hard to find the right classroom situation for him, whether special needs or some combination of special needs and time in a "typical" classroom. No child deserves to be humiliated like that. Kindergarten is not a reality show. But more importantly, kindergarten is not a democracy. Sure, let the 5-year-olds vote on what story they read or whether to have cookies or crackers for a snack. But if a child is causing a problem in class, the teacher needs to be a grown-up and deal with it.
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