Scholar, Storyteller To Discuss 'Building Community in Schools and Classrooms' On Oct. 12

by Lori Fogleman, director of media relations, (254) 710-6275

Baylor University's chapter of Phi Delta Kappa International and Waco ISD will host Dr. Ricardo Garcia, an award-winning author and professor in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, for a public presentation on "Building Community in Schools and Classrooms" from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 12, at the Waco ISD Texas Playhouse Theater, 201 I-35 South.

The meeting is free and open to students, area educators and the public.

Garcia will visit Baylor and Waco ISD as a Phi Delta Kappa traveling scholar. PDK is an honorary society for professionals in the field of education. The local Baylor chapter includes faculty and students, as well as teachers and administrators from various surrounding school districts.

"Participants will hear how K-12 teachers, administrators, teacher educators and teacher candidates can use community-building strategies to assist their students to work in a diverse, democratic society and lead productive, socially responsible lives," said Dr. Rachelle Meyer, lecturer in curriculum and instruction in the Baylor School of Education and president of the Baylor PDK chapter. "Through the use of case studies, Dr. Garcia's presentation provides various strategies for building community in the school and the community."

Garcia has spent more than four decades in education, beginning in 1964 as a high school English teacher in New Mexico. Since 1970, he has taught or served as an administrator at various colleges and universities and currently teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Garcia is a storyteller for the Nebraska Humanities Council. His poetry has been published in New Mexico Magazine, and his book, On the Way to San Francisco Bay, (Salmon Run Press, 2001) won the National Poetry Award in 2001. He is the author of the professional education books, Teaching in a Pluralistic Society (HarperCollins, 1991) and Teaching for Diversity (Phi Delta Kappa, 1998, 2nd edition, 2005), as well as Coal Camp Justice (University of New Mexico Press, 2005), Montana's Top Bananas (iUniverse, 2005), Brother Bill's Bait Bites Back (University of Nebraska Press, 2004), Ten Telling Tales (Xlibris, 2004) and Coal Camp Days (University of New Mexico Press, 2001).

Garcia earned his bachelor's degree from New Mexico Highlands University in 1963, a master's degree in English education from the University of Denver in 1971, and his doctorate in education from the University of Denver in 1973.

While in Waco, Garcia also will be one of the guest speakers at the 2006 Texas Association for the Inprovement of Reading (TAIR) Conference, which will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 13, in Bennett Auditorium on the Baylor campus. Registration for the conference is $55 and is limited to space available.

This year's TAIR Conference at Baylor will focus on cultural diversity in the classroom. Garcia will present Friday on the "Art and Practice of Hispano Storytelling," demonstrating how teachers can use storytelling in a variety of ways and for multiple subjects, such as science, social studies, cultural studies, English-as-a-second language, foreign languages and language arts.

For more information, contact Margaret Thomson, TAIR coordinator at Baylor, at (254) 710-6135 or Margaret_Thomson@baylor.edu.