In 1991, Takuya Hane began a teaching job at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. He was the school’s only Japanese language professor at the time. But he relished the freedom to test out different teaching styles and the opportunity to build friendships with his students. After a highly successful year, Takuya Hane received two prestigious professorships from Ivy League schools: University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and Harvard University in 1994. At UPenn and Harvard, Takuya Hane further honed his teaching skills and developed a desire to share his innovative ideas of active learning with Japan and the rest of Asia.

In 1997, he moved back to Japan, and Active Learning was born. Active Learning’s mission is to take the engaging classroom environment Hane saw in the United States and bring it to Japan. The typical Japanese high school student goes through hours of prep school daily in order to enter a prestigious university. These prep schools, which prepare the student for the college entrance exam, emphasize rote memorization and stifle their creative thinking from a young age. As the education landscape changes throughout Japan and the rest of Asia, Active Learning is leading the way to help schools and other organizations adapt.