I am a college freshman boy living in Tokyo, Japan. I want to discuss an issue I have for more than seven years. I found this website to find the solution to my issue, but lacked courage and have to wait for more than half a year to finally take a step here by typing. I had trouble adapting to the Japanese secondary education system. Until 11, I was enrolled in a top level IB school in Connecticut. Our family moved to Japan when I was 11, and I was enrolled in a traditional 6~7 year Japanese Boys school. There, I had trouble adapting to the exam-centered cramming knowledge type education method. From Monday to Saturday, I had to study more than 12 hours every day. The content of the education was something like "writing the same Chinese character 10000 times", "Memorising Exam Question." "Copying an entire textbook", and "Memorizing all the answers." This unbelievable inefficient education is a result of harsh competition between schools to get higher grades in exams. A student who failed is expelled from school and repelled from the society. Unsurprisingly, after two years, I got asthma due to stress. The following year, I got spontaneous deafness and lost my hearing. This, also a result of stress, gradually recovered but still affecting me to this day. Beyond my fourth year, I don't remember what happened much because I went completely peculiar. After graduation, I was set free. My mind, however, is not. That seven years felt like a semester long during elementary school period. The fundamental part of me is gone for good. After seven years of prison serving, I was thrown out in the society completely confused. I was gifted, but that thing is long gone with my fundamental part. Here, after wasting two semesters of freshman years, if I proceed this way, I would probably share the same fate as the Titanic.
The problem is nobody knows what to do.