A Bronx high school is joining a year-long pilot program designed to help students develop essential life skills.
Last month, the Education Revolution Association (ERA) announced the Academy of Mount St. Ursula had been selected for the Year Two pilot of ERA’s Life Discovery Classroom curriculum.
As schools and educational institutions in the U.S. prioritize creativity, collaboration, adaptability and critical thinking, among essential life and success skills, employers throughout the country are also in demand for employees with versatile skills to meet the requirements of the modern-day job market.
To bridge classroom gaps and foster essential skills, ERA launched a year-long comprehensive and project-based curriculum last year by teaching practical life skills, emotional intelligence and self-awareness. The Academy of Mount St. Ursula was one of only 14 schools selected to participate in this year’s pilot, according to ERA.
The Life Discovery Classroom curriculum is built on three core pillars — self and career discovery, understanding of others and maximizing individual potential, which exposes students to a broad spectrum of valuable skills and a personalized learning experience.
ERA students from participating schools learn about self-discovery using personality assessment tools throughout the course to become aware of their own strengths, preferences and communication while utilizing that same knowledge to form more effective groups and teams, such as project-based learning teams, lab partners and study and discussion groups.
As part of the first Life Discovery Classroom principle, students set goals and chronicled their growth over the course of the year in an 80-page self scouting report.
Participating students develop success skills and maximize their individual potential through a course anchored on a series of modules which help students develop the necessary capabilities needed for jobs, careers and throughout life which include creative problem solving, establishing and achieving goals, growth mindset and leadership, self management, presence and influence.
“We’re excited to partner with the incredible educators at the Academy of Mount St. Ursula to deliver a program that helps students build and leverage their creative thinking and problem solving, resilience and adaptability and self management communication skills,” said ERA’s executive director Tim O’Shei. “These are traits employers say they are seeking, and those are among the skills we’re building in the Life Discovery Classroom.”
O’Shei added employers are looking for people who don’t just know the answers, but know what questions to ask in the first place — with the proliferation of AI tools in the digital age.
“There is an urgent imperative to teach life and success skills now, as American schools face a critical inflection point, and the Academy of Mount St. Ursula is exactly the kind of school where this curriculum can thrive,” O’Shei said.
The Academy of Mount St. Ursula is one of 14 schools across New York and Ohio participating in ERA’s expanded Year Two cohort. Their president, Geraldine Lavery, said she can’t wait to see what the Bronx students discover about themselves.
“ERA’s Life Discovery Classroom does something we haven’t been able to find anywhere else — it gives students the tools to understand who they are, what they are capable of and how to communicate that to the world,” Lavery said, who was appointed school president in 2022.
Lavery added the school has always been guided by the value of true education molding character and shaping a person and said this curriculum translates that philosophy into reality.
According to ERA, All Life Discovery Classroom curricula, materials, training and school support are provided entirely for free to each school participating in Year Two of the curriculum, provided by the private philanthropy of software entrepreneur and ERA’s founder, Fred Ode, who is also a former Ohio public school teacher. Year One of the curriculum pilot reached about 600 students across three states, according to ERA.
ERA visualizes a future which every student understands their strengths and weaknesses, identifies their best-fit career options with plans to pursue them, achieves their maximum education potential, has a practical understanding of life and experiences a journey of self-discovery.
The Academy of Mount St. Ursula high school is located in Bedford Park and was founded by the Ursuline Sisters in 1855 in East Morrisania, now in Morrisania, which was part of Westchester County. Upon its inception, it became the first all-girls Catholic High School in New York state.
“The young women of the Bronx arrive at our doors with remarkable resilience, ambition and heart — and our job is to make sure they leave with the self-knowledge and skills to match,” Lavery said.
