Educator Speaker Series—The Funds of Knowledge and the Arts: Tools for Learning From Students and Creating Culturally Relevant Practices in Our Classrooms

Drawing on a number of teaching tools and resources, Dr. Luis-Genaro Garcia will show participants how they can draw on their students’ familial/home knowledge (Funds of Knowledge) in order to connect art and Common Core standards to their own subject-specific curriculums. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in lesson planning activities where they will consider non-traditional approaches like drawing from students’ familial and communal assets in the planning of their own culturally relevant practices.

Luis-Genaro Garcia is an artist, scholar, former LAUSD educator, and current Assistant Professor of Art Education at Sacramento State. His work as a scholar, educator, and artist spotlight the social and political barriers (past and present) that exist in marginalized communities. As an artist and former educator he is influenced by critical education theory as a pedagogical tool that draws on the socio-political, cultural and communal knowledge of students. His lectures and workshops, focused on critical art education approaches, have been presented through institutions like Self Help Graphics and Art, the Getty, the California State University system, and the University of Arizona. He is a practitioner who engages with communities to build relationships and to best prepare pre-service educators and community advocates through the continued legacy of the Barrio Art program at Sacramento State. His work is housed in the collections of the Library of Congress, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and other university collections.