Project American Life employs vivid experiential methods wherein the students make the discoveries.  Learning, if it is to be lasting and real, must encourage the development of a comprehensive worldview ~ for it is this larger meta-narrative that generates the prerequisite desire to know and sustains the subsequent understanding. 

Students must learn to think critically ~ to put aside biased assumptions and knee-jerk reactions in favor of solid evidence and coherent consideration.  Fortunately, this is innate to children.  They enter the world picking up any unknown object, studying every new face, and making all conceivable inquiries.  Thus, each day of Project American Life revolves around questions that are both personal and profound:  Who am I?  What am I?  Where am I?  Why am I?

By using The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution as textual foundations, Project American Life. is able to address questions related to personal meaning and purpose, as well as examine the way we relate to one another ~ the way we fit into the greater historical context, and the way principle forms our moral identity as a people.  Because P.A.L. is built upon these solid foundations, students reach for the core virtues of the program ~ the founding principles of America.  As in 1776, these truths become self-evident as students delve into the four Cs of Citizenship:  Clarity • Compassion • Courage • Commitment.  The Constitution takes this moral cornerstone of The Declaration and creates an enduring blueprint for our Democratic Republic.  The starting paradigm is quite revolutionary, “We the people.”