While I'd like to avoid doing the same sort of generalization as the author has done, it can be difficult. Japanese & Western (aka, American & Canadian) cultur

While I'd like to avoid doing the same sort of generalization as the author has done, it can be difficult. Japanese & Western (aka, American & Canadian) cultures are very different. A great number of people who come over here (to Japan), regardless of how long they stay, never really absorb themselves in the way of thinking & doing things here. They continue to live a sort of "dual life", where on one hand they are happy enough because of all the wonderful benefits of this society, but on the other always expect things "should be like back home" and are somehow less developed with regards to individual "rights" & the like. I have two children in the school system here. I have found the system to be far more creative than any foreigner who moves here could ever anticipate, and quite honestly, much better than what I was exposed to in America in any category you'd care to name. Society here teaches people to think of everyone else first before taking care of your own needs - a lesson that wouldn't be a bad thing to rub off on Westerners a bit more. Aside from that, I echo all the existing posts on this guy's choice of using a single student's experience with a single (possibly bad) teacher, despite saying he has 15 years experience in Japan & has spoken to hundreds of students about this.