This is why I'm homeschooling my sons for kindergarten and not letting them enter public school until 1st grade.  And this is why I'm homeschooling my daughters from K-6th grade.  Children are under too much pressure these days by society, school districts, the No Child Left Behind Act, and their parents to suceeed and be little robotic adults from the time they learn to walk.

@TheNumberScott@xanga - I second that thought. I volunteered in the classroom, and ate lunch with my child. Kintergarten was OK, but the lunchroom was very scary, with teachers shouting all the time, "No Talking!" "Hurry up and eat!"

First grade class was less fun with more pressure from peers.

Second grade class was very good, but the lunchroom got worse.

Half-way through the year, she asked if she could be homeschooled, which we have been doing since 2002.

Homeschool.

I would take others' advice to volunteer in the classroom but be aware the teacher (like anyone) is likely to change their way of being with you there.

The other thing is to see if you can find out what happens when the teacher gets angry.  Of course you'll have to sort out 5 year old angst from actual truth but it may give you some perspective about what is happening. See if it is her main teacher or another teacher she is exposed to (or, heaven forbid, all of them). It's possible that it's a school culture problem more than any one person.

I'm not fond of my son's kider teacher - she always seems stressed and unhappy and I've hears the tone of voice she uses with the kids - but my son doesn't seem to notice so we stick with it.  I still have to work so homeschool isn't an option for us right now.  Thus far, he's learning and reasonably happy but I am sad that he's already losing his love of going to school at the age of 5.  Very, very sad.

@ayisha881 - Just curious why you are hsing your daughters and not your sons?  In general boys fare MUCH worse in a school environment than girls.  I strongly recommend reading "Raising Cain" and "Boys Adrift".  I was a teacher and after reading these books I seriously question why any sane parent puts their sons in school.

The the OP I second, third and fourth all of the recommendations to spend time in the classroom as much as possible.  The teacher may be able to change her behavior for one or two visits but not for multiple visits over a period of time.  And go at various times, before lunch, after lunch, at dismissal time.  My son is a very anxious child.  He had a very difficult time with K despite being a perfectly behaved child.  Part of it is his ADD (which we discovered after K) and part of it was his teacher.  My son is a people pleaser and this woman was a humiliator and shamer.  I spent many, many, many hours in the classroom and saw her reduce children to tears, make them feel terrible about themselves and their work all while claiming to "love" the kids.  The sad thing is I don't think she even realized how hurtful she was.

The other part of the problem is that the "new K" is incredibly developmentally inappropriate for 5 and 6 year olds.  Remember the old style K with centers where you learned to color inside the lines, play make believe and make fire engines out of shapes you cut yourself?  THAT is what is cognitively and motor skills appropriate NOT reading, NOT writing!  If kids can do those things and want to do those things great but statistically the push for early academics is a leading cause of dx of learning disabilities in children which would make it likely that it is also a strong contributor to emotional disorders like stress and anxiety. 

Consider this, Finland has the highest literacy rate in the world.  They do not even start formalized schooling until 7 years old.  That is 2nd grade for your average American child.  There is absolutely NO correlation to the age at which a child begins reading and computing and their future success in life.  They are finite skills, once they are mastered they are mastered.  In the end it really doesn't matter if this happens at 4 or 9 years old.  This emphasis on all the wrong things at all the wrong times is a large part of why we homeschool.

I agree with those that have said to volunteer in the class room, that way you can see first hand what she is dealing with and how she is dealing with it.
Personally my daughter has some anxiety issues (I think it's hereditary, I have anxiety issues too).  I've never been one to run straight to medication especially for kids.  Her anxiety is one of the many reasons we decided to homeschool.  We are only doing pre-K but she is thriving and doing well.  If you have the time available to you I'd definitely consider homeschooling an option.  For us starting out using a curriculum from an umbrella school has helped eliminate that fear that she's not learning what she should.

@aidensmommy - Well I don't want my daughters being around bad influences in school (the girls in my husband's country are all materialistic, meaning there's a good portion of them who have servants/nannys *which is legal in my husband's area of the world* and since we don't believe in having servants, I don't want my girls getting picked on for not being like them.  Plus the dowry in Islam for marriage is what the man can afford, not $50,000 USD + a driver + a big house + a fancy car (which women are forbidden to drive anyway in hubby's country) + nanny to take of the future children + jewelry + servants to do the housework and cooking).  I don't want my daughters coming home and asking me why their little friends have servants and we don't.  Plus I can't sew and since I'll be teaching my daughters to do sewing, it will give me practice as well.

@bubbelcat - We were talking about this last night.  My hubby says he'll make sure to send our sons to their cousins school so their cousins can help defend our sons. I don't want my sons taking crap from anybody because I'm American.  I'm more worried about my daughters being picked on school then my sons.  Plus there is just things I cannot teach my sons that a school could teach them.

Yeah, it doesn't sound like normal Kindy behavior, even with the more accelerated programs out there.  Even if your child's more of an old soul who's a bit more sensitive. 

What would I do?  No idea.  We homeschool and are planning/hoping to avoid public schooling as my children can learn pretty groovy on their own and I don't want their love of learning literally sucked out of them like what happened to me (yup, had my fair share of awful, horrible teachers, and yup, they shaped me more than you'd hope).

@filtered_sunlight - Similar thing happened to me in third grade! We had a teacher's aide who was just horrible. She was very picky about "clean desks", so she would wander around the room during class, and if you even just had loose papers in your desk she would dump the desk over and make you sit on the floor and clean it top to bottom while the other kids learned (and stared at you). And she would scream over nothing. Very stressful, and I ended up with an ulcer as well, even though I was very well behaved and got very good grades (I always had a "messy" desk, though, even if I still don't consider that "messy"). I wonder why people like that decide to work around young children, when patience is SO important.