If you are near the UA's Education Building around noon on a weekday, you may walk past a group of visiting Mexican teachers sitting on the grass, sharing food and soaking up the sun before heading back to their Project SEED class.

Breezing through the College of Education’s third and fifth floors, the voices of lively debates in Spanish may echo through the stillness, with names of scholars and theorists such as Paulo Freire, Ken Goodman or Guillermo Bonfil-Batalla projecting from the open classroom doors. 

This is Project SEED, an in-service professional development program designed for educators serving indigenous elementary schools in Mexico.

Each August for the last three years, supported by funding from USAID, Georgetown University and Mexico's Secretary of Public Education, the program has hosted 40 educators motivated and committed to join the intensive program for durations of five months and 11 months.

The lives of those involved with Project SEED is rigorous and, at times uncomfortable, but always full of activity. These educators leave their families and their authority as teachers, school principals and teacher-coaches to become students at the UA in a very unfamiliar context.   

The weekly load of academic courses, service-learning in local Tucson schools and nonprofit organizations, like the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, are bundled into a demanding program linking theory to practice. 

Longer than half a millennium of colonization has imposed rigid, hostile and often violent regimes of schooling upon indigenous communities throughout the Americas. Mexico, like the U.S., has its own particular history with schools as public spaces used to stamp out indigenous languages and diverse ways of living.

Project SEED hones a unique opportunity to work with in-service educators to critically analyze what schools have done, and imagine with each other, what schools can do better.  

So, we ask our educators to examine and propose alternatives for some of the most pressing questions in indigenous education: Is schooling serving our children? How do we change the culture of schools to reflect the interests of indigenous families? What would my classroom look like if I utilized my students' linguistic and cultural repertoires as strengths for enhancing classroom learning?

The power of educational exchanges geared toward specific interests, like Project SEED's focus on strengthening indigenous education in public schools, can be ambiguous in the many layers of activity and encounters in a full program like ours. 

However, we are reminded in small ways of the meaning each small step we take works to bridge what may seem to be cultural and linguistic divides. 

One recent exchange with a Roskruge Bilingual Magnet School kindergarten class reminded me of the hope in small triumphs. 

Our program invited the class of 45 students to come on a walking field trip to the UA. Arriving at the College of Education's Worlds of Words international children's library, our Project SEED participants hosted the little ones in small learning centers, engaging them in hands-on activities about the distinct languages and cultural practices of Mexico. 

Accompanied by parents, teachers and a handful of UA undergraduate students, the Roskruge students made books inspired by the character of a little Yucatecan Mayan girl and how they learned to count in Nahuatl. They also practiced telling time in the Zoque and Spanish languages. 

Toward the end of the activities, a young student told me, in Spanish, with slow, contemplative articulation: "I think that I like it here," referring to the University. 

I pointed to the adult women on their way to class and asked, "Are you going to come and study here when you're big like those women?" She said yes, but said she would have to bring her baby sister along. We agreed that was possible. Her 5-year-old voice echoed powerfully as I considered the potential of educational exchanges when people are made to feel comfortable and respected in historically hostile spaces.

The work of changing the culture of schooling is truly a grueling, uphill and time consuming battle. However, every moment of silence, pause or contemplation of new possibility is an opportunity. 

These encounters can become much more than moments, helping to give way to change and greater possibility for those whose cultures and languages are too often unrecognized in schools and public institutions. 

As we go about our daily business at the University, my reflections on the small impacts a program like Project SEED has on our lives helps me to take more notice to the many other acts engaged by many other programs throughout our university community. They, too, may be chipping away at regimes of exclusion, helping give way to authentic human exchange – paso por paso, step by step.

For three years, Vanessa Anthony-Stevens has served as the program coordinator of Project SEED in the UA department of teaching, learning and sociocultural studies, which is within the College of Education. On June 17, some of the Project SEED participants will be presenting posters at the American Indian Language Institutes summer conference, "Revisiting the State of Indigenous Languages," which will be held June 17-18 in Tucson.

People with developmental disabilities (DD), just like everyone else, want to be a part of the community and have choices about where and with whom they live. 

But they face a set of challenges and barriers.

The Technical Assistance Collaborative and the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Housing Task Force's report, "Priced Out in 2012," identified the difficulty people with disabilities living on limited income have in obtaining decent, safe, affordable and accessible housing.

One glaring and concerning note: the study found that, on average, individuals with disabilities in the U.S.  receiving a supplemental security income payment had to pay 104 percent of their own income in order to rent a one-bedroom unit at fair market prices. 

The UA Sonoran University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) responded by creating a housing guidebook, "My House My Home: Real Homes for Real People," to support individuals with disabilities in creating a home that meets their desires and needs.

With grant funding from the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council (ADDPC), collaborators held a community series with training on housing related topics. Also with ADDPC funding support, the collaborators expanded on the topics and included other contributors to participate in the creation of the guidebook, which provides perspectives from people with developmental disabilities themselves, their family members, service providers and experts in the field.

The guidebook integrates suggestions about what to consider in addition to what options, resources and supports are available in Arizona. It also includes personal stories of what works as individuals with disabilities talk about living alone, with a roommate or with family.

For example, Dirk lives in a co-housing community with his sister and father in Tucson, Ariz.  This setting provides Dirk the opportunity to form new friendships, develop an extended support network, and participate in community based activities with people besides his family. Dirk takes care of the chickens, helps neighbors with various tasks, and is an active member of his community.

The six chapters highlight the discussions important in choosing and creating a home of our own; describes Arizona’s service systems; presents alternatives such as shared living, cooperative housing and co-housing communities; identifies possible home modifications and assistive technologies; compares the benefits of renting or buying a home; and identifies a person’s rights according to the Fair Housing Act. A planning worksheet is available to track and document the planning process and identify the necessary supports to create a home of your own. The guidebook is available in English and Spanish.

Making appropriate plans for one’s future takes time and thought. My research with family caregivers of adults with DD found that caregivers experience anxiety about where and with whom their loved one will live when they are no longer able to provide support. People may not be fully aware of their options or resources and don’t know when and how to start the planning process. 

The Sonoran UCEDD housing guidebook, caregiver roadmap, and person-centered planning toolkit are resources to help individuals with disabilities and their families start these important discussions. Incorporating input, particularly from the person with a disability, promotes community integration, inclusion, independence, choice and control.

For even more information, visit "Future Care Planning: A Roadmap for Family Caregivers" and read the "Person Centered Planning Toolkit." 

Lynne Tomasa, of the UA Department of Family and Community Medicine, is the primary author of "My House My Home: Real Homes for Real People," which was produced by dozens of contributors. Tomasa joined the Sonoran UCEDD in 2006 when it was first established at the UA. As a gerontologist and medical educator, her research interests include life-long caregiving, transition planning, end of life care and health science education. Tomasa received her bachelor's degree in psychology and a masters degree in social work from the University of Hawaii, then her doctorate degree in higher education with a minor in gerontology at the UA. She has invested more than 20 years at the UA College of Medicine, where she also has developed curriculum for undergraduate and graduate medical education.