Character before competency. Always.
The Franklin Standard
Does character still matter in an age of intelligent machines?
The Moment
For two hundred and fifty years, the American system of self-government has held, longer than almost anyone expected. It doesn’t always feel that way right now. Political noise, economic uncertainty, and a wave of AI tools arriving faster than most of us can evaluate them.
The Franklin Standard starts from something the founding generation understood well. A free people needs character as much as it needs capability. That was true long before AI. It’s more true now.
The program
The Franklin Standard is built around Benjamin Franklin’s own thirteen virtues, the character disciplines he tracked on a chart three hundred years before habit trackers existed. Each one is grounded in founding-era primary sources, tested through evidence-based argument, and applied directly to the judgment calls AI now hands us every day.
It starts with a short daily practice. It’s built to go much deeper.
The Founder
Lara K. Beard spent sixteen years teaching American history in Arkansas classrooms. She built her teaching around inquiry, close reading of primary sources, and formal argumentation done the hard way, no shortcuts. Her approach to civic education is, by design, machine-proof.
The Franklin Standard is built on the same conviction that carried her classroom: that character is teachable, and that good-faith argument is worth doing right.
© The Franklin Standard TM. All rights reserved.
13 Days. 13 Virtues.
No lecture required.