Well, being the mother of a person who has been diagnosed with Aspergers, well I guess I could put my two cents in.

Was the teacher wrong? Absolutely!! Her methods were despicable. She is a trained professional who should know better, and the fact that she has the little souls of 5 year old children, in her hands, day after day, and that she felt she had the right to take a 5 year old, march him to the front of the class and have the others vote on this, well, this teacher obviously should NOT be teaching any 5 year old children. There are matters of self esteem here that have to be addressed.

There is also the matter of allowing other 5 year olds to decide who stays in class or who does not stay in class. This was a very bad choice made by this teacher. Very unprofessional of her.

NOW LET ME GET TO HER SIDE OF THE STORY, Which probably has not even been addressed yet because I haven't read one single thing that can be attributed to the teacher.

My son was EXACTLY like the little 5 year old. My son actually failed kindergarten. Imagine, failing kindergarten. Back in that time, no one ever heard of aspergers. And this was public school.

Aspergers kids have horrible behavior problems, (not all, but many many do). The temper tantrums, the lack of impulse control, etc. etc, well it makes for one hellish day in the day of a teacher trying to teach 30 other students. I once had a teacher tell me 'How can I teach all the others, when my main concern is your son's behavior"?? "It's not fair to the other students".

Of course my son's teacher never made him march up to the class nor did she have the others vote him out of the class. My son was suspended from kindergarten. What was the first clue??

The first day of kindergarten, the teacher gathered all the kids around and said "Sit down children, we are going to have storytime now, so please be seated, be quiet, and I'll open the book".

My son took one look at her and said "Get Real, I want to play with the blocks".

He did this kind of behavior over and over for a few months, until the teacher couldn't take it anymore. He was then put in special education classes.

For children with behavior problems. His intelligence was off the chart, that's how bright he was. You just couldn't say no to him.

Obviously if someone had told us about aspergers 20 years ago, maybe I would still have my son in my life today, but that was not the case back in the day.

If a kid disrespected the teacher, and the teacher had to put all her attention on one kid, the other kids suffered. I suspect this might be in play here.

Of course the teacher was wrong. You would think that because we now know about autism spectrum disorders, and aspergers, that teachers migh be better trained to spot this type of behavior. We don't even know if she was. The fact that the mother was in the process of getting the kid diagnosed, well BELIEVE ME, THERE WERE CLUES IN HIS BEHAVIOR.

Hopefully, (because they have asperger schools, and various programs, that these kids are being helped and better equipped to socialize as they mature.

I believe this teacher was just at her wits end with the kid's behavior (I know because I have had many teachers tell me this, way back then. It's not easy to have these type of kids in the classroom. This was not a special ed classroom.

This is a story in progress. The kid has now been diagnosed, the teacher, well I don't know what will happen to the teacher. She will probably get a slap on the wrist, and be transferred to another school.

In my honest opinion, teachers (especially those who teach kindergarten and first grade), should be made aware of certain behaviors and if that behavior continues, then the teacher should speak to the parents (that might have happened in this case, no one knows yet).

More and more youngsters are being diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (I believe it's now 1 in 150). That's an awful lot of children to be diagnosed.

I hope this particular teacher gets the help she needs. Her career can go down the tubes over this one incident. They are probably looking into other cases (she might have done this before).

She is hurting not only the 5 year old, but the other classmates. She taught them to be judgemental bullies. There had to be better ways of handling this particular situation.

Just my two cents.