Book 'Education of Domination and Manipulation: Why Children Turn Their Backs on School' Released. A Story of Regret, Repentance, and Hope from a Former Principal Who Experienced His Child's School Refusal.

Masatsugu Watanabe, representative director of the general incorporated association Another Stage (Location: Oki-gun, Shimane Prefecture) and head of the online school refusal support service Kazemachi, released his first book, 'Education of Domination and Manipulation,' on Amazon.co.jp in March 2026. In this book, Mr. Watanabe, who experienced his own child's school refusal as a parent, expresses his regret and repentance for the education he once practiced as a junior high school teacher, while also raising issues with the current school education system.

'Education of Domination and Manipulation: Why Children Turn Their Backs on School'

Key Points of the Book

### Regret and Repentance for 'Educational Domination' 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 his student guidance. However, his own daughter's school refusal made him realize that much of the guidance he believed was 'for the children's sake' was actually 'domination and manipulation' to put them on a track convenient for himself. Written from a place of strong regret and repentance for having intimidated and controlled over a thousand former students with fear, this book is not just a theory of education but a record of an educator's soul.

### Uncovering the Truth Behind the '350,000 Students Refusing School' in Elementary and Junior High Schools Currently, the number of students refusing to attend elementary and junior high school has exceeded a record high of 350,000. This book points out that this situation is not a problem of the individual child but has its cause in the school education system itself. It presents the perspective that the uniform education system, unchanged for 150 years and designed to make Japanese people 'sturdy gears' that supported the 'Japan as Number One' era, has reached a limit where it is biologically unsuitable for modern children, and that school refusal is a survival instinct to protect their own lives.