Tergar Schools Model of Learning
A Way of Learning Rooted in Joy, Resilience, and Altruism
The Tergar Schools Model of Learning is grounded in the understanding that all people have Basic Goodness — a natural capacity for Awareness, Love, Compassion, Wisdom, and Joy (ALCWJ). At the heart of this goodness is a shared wish to be happy and free from suffering. The expression of this wish, known in Tibetan Buddhism as Bodhichitta, is a form of altruism that flows from who we are and connects us to others.
The model supports learners and teachers in bringing these qualities into everyday life through a practical set of life skills and a flexible, responsive structure that adapts to diverse classroom settings. Over time, this model cultivates a way of learning that is joyful, resilient, and fundamentally altruistic.
Basic Goodness & Its Core Qualities
Basic Goodness is a natural and unwavering sense of well-being, clarity, and care that lives in all beings, big and small. Even when we make mistakes or feel overwhelmed, this basic goodness is still there.
From Basic Goodness emerge five core qualities that give it form and strength – Awareness, Love, Compassion, Wisdom, and Joy:
- Awareness: Knowing what’s happening within and around us with clarity.
- Love: Nurturing warmth and kindness within ourselves that naturally flows out to others.
- Compassion: Meeting our own and others’ pain with a heartfelt wish to ease it.
- Wisdom: Responding to life with discernment, values, and purpose.
- Joy: Playful, effortless connection with who we really are.
Altruism
At its heart, Basic Goodness includes a caring impulse to ease suffering — in ourselves and others. This is the root of altruism. It is not something added or performed; it is a natural expression of who we are when we are grounded in our core qualities of awareness, love, compassion, wisdom, and joy.
The Threefold Learning Framework
Our curriculum is structured around a threefold approach drawn from the Buddhist tradition:
The view is our understanding about a topic. It is often linked to cognitive forms of learning and is most closely related to what happens in traditional learning environments.
Meditation refers to our experience of a topic. It targets the felt-sense of experience and includes a range of forms of learning that explore awareness, love and compassion, wisdom, and joy.
Application refers to applying our learning in daily life. This includes a broad range of engaged and experiential learning activities that help facilitate changes in students’ habits and lifestyles as they engage with others and the world.
Through this framework, learning unfolds on the cognitive (view), affective (meditation), and behavioral (application) levels, resulting in a transformative learning path for every student involved.
Life Skills: Building the Muscle of Resilience
Just like strong muscles support movement, life skills support meaningful action. They connect awareness with behavior, bringing love, wisdom, joy, and compassion into the world.
Key life skills are bunched into three baskets:
SEE (Awareness)
- Settling: Steadying mind and body—even when we feel excited or stressed.
- Pausing and Opening: Creating space before we respond with openness and curiosity.
- Listening and Seeing: Paying close attention to what’s happening within and around us.
UNDERSTAND (Wisdom)
- Discovering: Seeing things as they are so we can understand them more clearly.
- Appreciating and Reframing: Noticing what’s good and viewing challenges as opportunities.
- Playing and Imagining: Staying light-hearted and living creatively.
RESPOND (Love & Compassion)
- Choosing: Making thoughtful choices guided by ALCWJ.
- Caring and Connecting: Growing meaningful relationships—with others and ourselves.
- Acting with Purpose: Taking actions that reflect our values and honor ourselves and others.
These life skills build the “muscle” of resilience, helping learners stay grounded, flexible, and connected.
Integrative Curriculum Design
Our curriculum is interdisciplinary, inquiry-based, and experiential. By integrating contemplative practices with rigorous academic content, students explore connections across disciplines and learn to approach challenges with curiosity and resilience.
Projects, discussions, and creative exploration allow students to develop both cognitive and emotional intelligence. Learning becomes an active, joyful, and deeply personal process.
Continuous Reflection and Growth
Education at Tergar Schools is a dynamic, evolving process. Regular reflection—individually and collectively—allows us to grow with integrity and responsiveness. Feedback loops, journaling, mentorship, and dialogue ensure that each student’s journey is supported, and that the school itself continues to learn and adapt.
The Outcome: Joyful, Resilient, and Altruistic Human Beings
The result of this integrated approach is not only well-educated students—but whole human beings. Tergar Schools graduates are joyful, resilient, and altruistic. They possess the inner resources to meet life’s challenges with courage and compassion, the skills to work collaboratively and creatively, and the motivation to contribute meaningfully to their communities and the wider world.
They are grounded in self-awareness, guided by ethical clarity, and inspired by a deep sense of purpose. These are the kind of leaders, learners, and changemakers the world needs.
