Well yes, working with little kids all day can be frustrating. I work with 4 and 5 yo's all day long...and I go in and out of rooms working with teachers and helping them with classroom management as well. Some are wonderful, calm and patient...and some are frustrated and not sure what to do and get in the habit of becoming more like a drill sargent. Sometimes I have gone into rooms and counted the negative statements vs. positive statements and talked to teachers about it (in a nice way obviously). You get a much better response from children by praising the good things you see. Classrooms and children fall apart in the rooms with the teachers that are constantly on kids all the time. And I am very consistent and structured as well...but you can't ridicule or shame children to get them to behave. That is never appropriate.
You could talk to the principal about some of the things that you have heard and ask if that is a common thing or not and that you were concerned about the things you heard. Principals aren't in rooms all the time..so they may not see those things at all. I would imagine it doesn't show as much during an observation. Or you could help out in the room and model appropriate ways to do things and catch them being good. It is amazing how when you say something like "I love the way that X is sitting up straight and ready to learn" how quickly others will do that....and how good it makes them feel. Much better way then saying "stop doing that" "sit still" etc etc. It takes practice for some to focus on the positive, but it is a much better way.
