Release of the book 'Education of Control and Manipulation: Why children turn their backs on school'. A story of regret, confession, and hope from a former principal who experienced parenting a truant child.

Masatsugu Watanabe, Representative Director of the General Incorporated Association Another Stage (located in Oki-gun, Shimane Prefecture) and representative of the online truancy support Kazemachi, released his first book, 'Education of Control and Manipulation' on Amazon.co.jp in March 2026. This book is an expression of regret and confession by Watanabe himself, who experienced his own child's truancy as a parent, regarding the education he once practiced as a junior high school teacher, as well as a book that raises issues with current school education.

"Education of Control and Manipulation: Why Children Turn Their Backs on School" Amazon Paperback: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0GPR1ZF2Q/ Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.jp/ebook/dp/B0GPMR8SMN/

Key Points of this Book

Regret and confession of "educational control" by a former passionate junior high school teacher During his 35-year teaching career, the author faced many children as a "passionate teacher" confident in student guidance. However, triggered by his own daughter's truancy, he realized that much of the guidance he believed was "for the children" was actually "control and manipulation" to put them on a convenient track for himself. Written out of strong regret and confession for intimidating and ruling over a thousand students with fear, this book is not just an educational theory, but a record of an educator's soul.

Uncovering the true identity of the "350,000 truant children" in elementary and junior high schools Currently, the number of truant children in elementary and junior high schools exceeds a record high of 350,000. In this book, he points out that the cause of this current situation is not the individual child's problem, but school education. He presents the perspective that the uniform educational system designed to make Japanese people "sturdy cogwheels," which supported "Japan as Number One" and has not changed for 150 years, has reached a biological limit of adaptation for modern children, and that truancy is a survival instinct to protect their own lives.

<Voice of Recommendation> "It reveals the starting point of creating a future school that breaks away from perfectionism and peer pressure and does not create 'truancy'. It sounds an alarm to the current society that has produced 350,000 'truants' and realistically expresses how adults who 'create the future' for children should change and act." Yasuko Kimura (First Principal of Osaka Municipal Ozora Elementary School, featured in the movie 'Minna no Gakko')

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