The Curriculum for Living
A curriculum for the one subject we all study every day: life.
An integrated body of knowledge, insights, principles, and practical wisdom created to help us understand our minds and motivations, the realities of our physical and cultural environments, and how to respond to life’s challenges more consciously and adeptly.
Not a collection of “how-to” tips. Not a self-help program. A coherent educational framework built on one premise:
The quality of our lives is determined largely by the decisions we make. Our decisions are driven by what we want and what we understand. Therefore, to navigate life capably, we need to understand ourselves and the world we live in, and we need to know how things work.
The CFL addresses our inner world, mindsets, beliefs, emotions, and our outer world, skillsets, practical knowledge for relationships, health, money, and every choice life puts in front of us. Presented in the form of three Domains.
What drives our decisions and behavior beneath the surface.
Relationships, health, money, and every choice life puts in front of us.
Two interwoven dimensions of one essential education.
Ask better questions. Make better choices.
Unlike math, science, or history, life has never had its own curriculum. Now it does.
The CFL doesn’t hand you answers. It builds understanding so you can discover your own answer — answers you can act on and pass on.
Adults first.
In 2023, parents, educators, and community leaders gave us a clear directive about what we were proposing to teach kids:
“We were never taught this stuff either. We can’t teach (or model) what we don’t understand! You have to teach adults first.”
So we are. Empowered adults raise more capable, confident kids, model healthier relationships, and lead stronger communities.
Understanding comes first; then it can be lived and passed on.
We can only model what we’ve actually lived.
Empowered adults guide and inspire.
One North Star
What would you want your children to know, understand, and be capable of as they set out on the bumpy road of life?
Three Domains
Four Questions
Before we can navigate life effectively, we need to understand what’s driving us, our needs, beliefs, emotional programming, and the cultural forces shaping our desires.
Doing so requires that we consciously and honestly answer The Four Essential Questions:
- 01Who are you?
- 02What do you want?
- 03Why do you want it?
- 04How will you get it?
Answering these questions leads us to explore human nature, how our mind works, the two fundamental approaches to living (control vs. alignment), and the concept of personal agency — the justified confidence that we can handle whatever life brings.
You & Me & We
This domain is about relationships: how we relate to our Self — our sense of identity, self-worth, and self-regulation, and how we relate to others in primary relationships, in friendships, in community, and as members of a larger human family.
You & Me & We insightfully addresses the intra and interpersonal dynamics that shape the quality of virtually every life experience.
You Gotta Know How Stuff Works
YGKHSW provides the practical, foundational understanding of how things work day-to-day in our complicated culture, not to make us experts, but to give us the conceptual and functional fluency to know what we’re dealing with, ask the right questions, make informed decisions, and continuously self-educate.
Most educational resources treat these as separate subjects. The CFL interweaves them — because that’s how life actually works.
Built to Evolve.
The CFL isn’t a finished work and never will be. As life changes, as understanding evolves, as new challenges emerge, it expands and deepens. Not a book on a shelf. A living body of knowledge that grows with us.
The Foundation Beneath Everything We Do
Every TOCW resource is rooted in the CFL: our Podcast, Briefings, Symposia, Forums, our Teach Kids, and Prepare Parents programs, publications, and partnerships. Different expressions and extensions of one expansive, interwoven body of knowledge.
TOCW is its curator and ambassador. You are a contributor and immediate beneficiary. Our children, and theirs, are why it exists.
Our podcast — the broad, accessible entry point into the insights and perspectives everything else is built on.
Tune inOur online Briefings & Symposia plus our Teach Kids and Prepare Parents efforts.
Meet LiLiOur interconnected, online forums — the community that keeps us learning from each other.
Join the communityOur resources for home-schooling, micro-schools, and life-transition programs.
Resources coming soonGo Deeper.
Educators, leaders, foundations, and potential partners can request our CFL Executive Summary: the framework, the philosophy, the ways to collaborate.
Request the Executive SummaryShare your ideas and talents
The CFL isn’t a finished body of work. It grows with every voice that joins it. We welcome yours.
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