A Clarification of The Invisible Culture

The Invisible Culture, a book by Susan Urmston Philips is a microethnography (which means it's about classrooms) of the Warm Spring Indians experience of the "Anglo" classroom. Without going into too much detail, it sucks. They spent the first six years of their lives learning to be calm and controlled in a group learning setting and are suddenly, by federal government requirement, thrown into the mix with loud, finicky, impulsive, white American children.

I felt a supreme kinship with these children as I related to them on a personal level in my undergraduate experience thus far. I spent the greater part of my educational experience in life procrastinating and half-assing left and right and COMPLETELY getting away with it. I even dragged my feet through my first year at college. I'm a junior now and having been through the proverbial shit-on-fan experience I can say that everyday I wake up and wonder how I became such a...student. Actually, that's a lie. It was sheer will power and determination, and it still is, every God-blessed day.

So now that I care and I want to participate, I'm almost certain I look like I have Asperger's Syndrome to most of my professors (or at least that's what I think they think of me). I'm the new guy everywhere I go. My only hope is that since everyone sees such "potential" in me and believe in me so much, that one day I will fulfill their love for me by following my bliss with gut-wrenching determination.