By Wendy DiAlesandro

A public school math and business teacher for seven years, Cleveland-area native Fred Ode freely admits he became “disillusioned.”

He believed true education had to be more than enforcing rules and steering students to four-year colleges. 

“It didn’t seem to make sense that everybody was being held to the same expectations, because we’re all different,” Ode said. “Everybody has a different learning style, and even then I knew we were still sending everybody down that narrow tunnel. I thought it was important to teach people at their own pace.”

He left the halls of academia, but never quit thinking about education. Having started and sold the construction accounting software company Foundation Software, Ode found himself with a healthy bank account.

Last year, he launched Education Revolution Association, the nonprofit behind Life Discovery, an elective course offering set to roll out at Manchester and Woodridge high schools in Summit County and at James A. Garfield, Rootstown, Southeast and Waterloo high schools in Portage County.

Students will learn how to ace “the test of life,” not just the test, Ode said. 

Ode said the 3-year pilot program focuses on emotional intelligence and self-discovery, while also exposing students to a wide variety of guests and life skills. Life Discovery is also being rolled out to students at Columbia High School in Lorain County and to an all-girls school and an all-boys school in Buffalo, New York. Through ERA, Ode is fully funding each of the programs.

ERA pitched Life Discovery to Summit County Educational Service Center Superintendent Joseph Iacano, who liked what he heard. Iacano spread the word and, soon, school districts were taking notice.

“I feel we spend a lot of time in schools working appropriately on content knowledge at the high school level,” Iacano said. “Sometimes we do not work on process, problem solving and interacting with others so that we can put our content knowledge to use. It’s a great way to work with kids to help them build those kinds of skills, which are essentially life discovery skills.”

As summer break draws to a close, the ESC is holding training sessions so district superintendents, curriculum directors and teachers learn more about Life Discovery’s program components and actual lessons.

The ESC will also help with program implementation, including scheduling time for teachers to share their experiences teaching the Life Discovery curriculum. ESC staff will personally visit each high school to speak directly to students, Curriculum Director Andrea Patt said, asking questions like what is working? What is not? What is your perspective?

Knowing the pilot program is set for a 3-year time frame, Patt said she expects to know in one year if Life Discovery is valuable.

“That’s usually how classes fall by the wayside,” Patt said. “If no students are enrolling in it, you know that's not a class that they want to take.”

Waterloo Local schools is presenting Life Discovery as a single-credit, pass-fail, full-year general elective aimed primarily at sophomores. The district intends to offer four sections this fall and will offer the class regardless of enrollment.

“This course is about teaching kids soft skills that will prepare them for the real world of work,” said Joe Clark, Waterloo’s former superintendent. He retired at the end of the academic year.

“Students will understand what areas of strengths they have to help prepare them for career choices,” he continued. “It’ll teach them tips to be engaging with people, to be conversant with people, to develop active listening skills and non-verbal communication skills, those sorts of things. Those are all things kids will need as they go off into the future. Whether they choose college or not, you always are going to have to be able to interact with people and do it well.”

Ode’s pledge to fully fund the program also influenced Clark’s decision to implement Life Discovery. Waterloo will receive $70,000 to cover the cost of the teachers, who all understand that program details may shift even as they are implementing it. Buy-in should not be difficult: Since teachers will provide constant feedback, they will actually create the curriculum, Clark said.

Ode agreed that similar assessments and curricula have been available for decades, but said his goal of offering a 12-year, 5-day-a-week program in the future would churn out teenagers who will have a better idea as to what they want to do with their lives. Right now, though, he’s willing to see if a 1-year program will yield desired results.

“Technology gives students the illusion that they should know what to do with their lives when they graduate from high school, but neither they nor their parents are able to assimilate the mass of information out there,” he said.

Ode believes it is OK not to know. The 20s are a time for discovery, he insisted.

However, that discovery process must be rooted in knowledge, and that’s where the schools fall short, he said. Life Discovery will prepare students for further academic or career training, but will also give them the emotional underpinning that enables them to deal confidently with life’s twists and unexpected turns.

“Every 18-year-old that steps out of high school, we’ve failed them miserably. I don't know how many 20-somethings I talk to, and they’re lost. Nobody’s spending the money. Nobody is attacking the problem to teach the test of life,” he said.

Life Discovery encourages students to realize that there is more to post-high school life than college or the trades. Short-term certificate programs provide people with jobs that pay well, but students simply don’t know about them, Ode said.

He said he applied his entrepreneurial experience and insight to developing ERA because, in his words, “High school kids were lost. They weren't prepared for this complicated, busy, insane world. They don't know what to do. They don't realize there's a million other things out there. ERA helps them correlate who they are with the different types of careers and what it takes to do those careers.”

Life Discovery is not currently a money-maker: Ode says he has invested $304 million in curriculum development, materials, equipment and staff, as well as paying the salaries of lobbyists and teachers.

“We want this to grow. I don't know how this is going to end up. I don't want to die with my money going to useless causes. I want it directed, and if I can live 20 more years, we can accomplish great things. These kids will at least be aware,” he said.