New videos featuring LeBron James highlight our College of Education

A new set of videos in partnership with the LeBron James Family Foundation feature LeBron James and highlight the mentoring relationships between students in the LeBron James Family Foundation College of Education and the I PROMISE students.

One video highlights the Urban Youth Mentoring course at The University of Akron, one of the resources built into the I PROMISE School model that brings resources to those students directly from UA.

This interdisciplinary course is one of seven UA courses taught at the I PROMISE School. It allows UA students the chance to mentor I PROMISE students throughout the Akron Public Schools District to help them uphold their promise to graduate high school. At the I PROMISE School, for example, mentors and mentees typically meet in the cafeteria for an hour and play games, do crafts, and just talk about school life and home life.

More about the course:

• Five sections of Urban Youth Mentoring are being taught this semester – one at the I PROMISE School and four at other middle schools in the Akron Public Schools District.

• This is the first year the course is being offered at the I PROMISE School.
• There are currently 91 UA students enrolled in the course and serving as mentors. Fifteen mentors are at the I PROMISE School.
• The goal is to have each UA student paired with one I PROMISE student. Sometimes the 1:1 ratio is not always maintained because an I PROMISE student who started off in the mentoring program might not finish it due to extracurricular obligations.
• Other than mentoring I PROMISE students, UA students learn about the scholarship of mentoring, especially for urban youth. They become familiar with research and outcomes of mentoring and look at complex systems urban youth might experience, such as socioeconomic issues

Another video, posted below, highlights the LeBron James Family Foundation College of Education as the starting point for future teachers – “the heart and soul of education,” James says in the video.

The Teacher Education Learning Community is featured in the third video, below. This program brings together teachers from the I PROMISE School and UA students who are pursuing an education degree, helping UA students get a more practical understanding of how to be a successful teacher in an urban school environment.