I had a similar experience (I was 9). The difference is that in the U.S. public system you get placed in "ESL" (English as a Second Language) program which dumb

I had a similar experience (I was 9). The difference is that in the U.S. public system you get placed in "ESL" (English as a Second Language) program which dumbs down the entire curriculum, especially English, and tries to hand hold all the students through it. Plus American education is in general less rigorous than the equivalent-year Russian education, and seeing as how kids in Russia learn some English in school, it's a much easier transition from Russia to U.S. than vice versa. The struggle then is purely a social one, kids in the U.S. don't have a belief of camaraderie, whereas in Russia a classmate would rarely get someone else in trouble casually, this happened routinely in U.S. schools. Plus of course, insert all the usual teasing about not understanding or knowing the language, being a communist/capitalist, etc.