The problem
Sustained attention is rare.
Students are surrounded by information and schooling, but rarely get sustained intellectual attention. Being in large groups is a central problem.
The apprenticeship idea
Ideas grow in passionate, expert company.
Across fields, many remarkable thinkers grew through proximity to books, mentors, laboratories, teachers, families, and communities that took ideas seriously.
where tangent began
Deeper ideas can bloom anywhere with the right exposure.
Tangent grew out of informal reading sessions in Karad, where students pushed beyond the usual classroom pace and into harder material. Some later went on to IIT programs, and others to postgraduate study and research in the USA and Europe. The format later extended to undergraduate reading groups in Germany.
What we believe
1
Young students can handle depth.
They need serious material and patient support.
2
Difficulty is not the enemy.
Bad support is.
3
Good mentors sharpen attention.
They do not spoon-feed the thinking.
4
The goal is independence.
Students should leave more capable of thinking for themselves.
Influences
A strong intellectual lineage.
Erik Hoel's essay "Why we stopped creating Einsteins" is one influence on Tangent's emphasis on expert attention and intellectual apprenticeship.
Related influences include Paul Graham on staying upwind and Henrik Karlsson on children being taken seriously.