Yusra Laila Visser

Most people begin a casual conversation with me by asking where I am from. "Yusra" is a name that does not sound familiar to most ears, so it is usually assumed that I come from some exotic location. My well-rehearsed reply to this question is, "I was born in The Netherlands, but I grew up in Africa." This naturally brings on the next question: "Oh, so your name is Dutch?" And, I dutifully respond; "Actually, it's Arabic."   The diversity and confusion in my vital statistics is ironically quite reflective of the overall nature of my life and interests. It complements what you can read in my formal resume. I spent the first 18 years of my life living in southeast Africa, traveling through some of the most interesting and impressive parts of the southern hemisphere. Throughout my childhood years I learned about the wonders and the difficulties of the postcolonial states in Africa. I witnessed the beauty of the optimism and commitment of a newly-independent country setting up its first social, political and economic systems. I saw the splendor of the diversity of lifestyles and cultures in those regions of the world. But I also witnessed the ravaging effects of war, poverty, and disease as the fabric of these nascent southern African states was being strained through the processes inherent in the post-colonial era.   As a teenager, I was given the opportunity to learn about the complicated political and social challenges in the global context by attending a very unique school. At age 12, I went to the Waterford Kamhlaba United World College in Mbabane, Swaziland. I remained there as a boarding student for the next five years. During those years I learned much about the values of a solid education. More importantly, I learned about the importance of political action and consciousness, about social service, and about the use of systematic inquiry for interpreting the attributes of the world around us. Waterford was created to provide interracial schooling opportunities while the Apartheid regime was active in South Africa. The school, therefore, promoted a strong focus on addressing political dynamics in the southern African context of that time. In addition, the school strongly emphasized community service work. As a result, I was able to serve as the local chapter president for Amnesty International, while also gaining experience in working with physically and mentally challenged children and adults, as well as teaching in the public school system. In my last few years at Waterford, I also worked in the community context by conducting a research analysis (in conjunction with the Swazi Ministry of Works) titled "Footpaths to Development." The research reported on the impact of urbanization on the patterns of footpaths in the suburban areas of Mbabane (the capital city of Swaziland).   Once my years at Waterford were complete, it was clear to me - and to those around me - that I would be well suited to a life in dedication of social service. After spending a brief period working at the Chapungu sculpture garden in Zimbabwe (a venue for the development and display of top-level artistic expression in stone by Zimbabwean artists, mainly of the Shona tradition), I relocated to Washington, DC, to attend American University. At AU I completed my undergraduate degree in International Relations, specializing in Africa Studies and Political Economy theory. Throughout my undergraduate degree I took advantage of the flexibility in the curriculum to also take a variety of courses in Spanish and French literature, Latin American studies, and US foreign policy. I even took a course that focused exclusively on the continent of Antarctica, allowing me to learn how to classify the different species of penguins, to analyze the origins and implications of the Falkland/Malvinas War, and to familiarize myself with geopolitical theory in relation to the sovereignty claims concerning Antarctica!   During my final years in the undergraduate program, and for a short while after graduation, I worked as a Program Assistant for the Education Development Center in Washington, DC. Through this work I learned much about the implementation of international development projects and about the educational needs in developing countries. I worked primarily on projects that integrated radio - an often overlooked medium in this age of high technology - for improving instructional effectiveness in remote areas of developing countries. It was through this work that I began to look more closely at learning as a phenomenon, and to education as a context striving to meet critical learning needs. As I explored this further I found that in the areas of learning and education, as is the case in many other areas, there are more questions than answers. Yet, strangely enough, we - as members of those professional communities of people involved in international human development work - have stopped asking these questions in spite of their critical importance to the concept of learning.   While completing my dissertation research at Florida State University's Instructional Systems program, I attempted to contribute some empirical answers to questions related to learning in formal contexts by conducting research on The Effects of Problem-Based and Lecture-Based Instructional Strategies on Problem Solving Performance, Problem Solving Processes, and Attitudes in a High-School Genetics Course. In addition, having worked in a variety of educational contexts (in the design of distance learning curricula and courses, in the development of electronic performance and training systems, and in the training of educational practitioners), I have been able to define more clearly the nature and implications of the "unknowns" in the areas of education and learning.   And so the story of my future begins… I have accepted a faculty position at Florida Atlantic University's Educational Technology and Research program, where I will be working on teaching, research, and program design. In all of these roles, and in my involvement in various professional communities, I look to the state of validated knowledge and consider what we might be able to add to the knowledge base so that we can be more effective in our teaching and learning. I consider how we can make schools a more integrated aspect of the community, so that children can grow up planning to apply their energies to leaving the world behind in a better state than in which they found it. And I try to question the things that we have grown to accept as "stated fact", so that we can look at alternative explanations for phenomena, and so that we can develop learning paradigms and systems that reflect the complexity of the world and of the individual learners   I can be contacted by e-mail at yvisser@learndev.org.