Specialization is for insects

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

— Robert Heinlein

Socratic Teaching - Finding the whole world inside of a word

[John Crossett] taught by a method as close to Socratic dialectic as the English language allowed, and he therefore spent a great deal of class time in defining a very few words.  In reading the Illiad, for example he would seek to work out with his students the meaning of "anger" or the meaning of "hero."  Often, after a couple of weeks, when a teacher in another section of the course would have finished teaching Homer altogether, Crossett's class would still be investigating a single, lonely word.  But what an investigation!  By his constant questioning he would open up the word and the student would find the whole world inside.  In seeking a definition, a student would examine the nature of language, the nature of man, and his own individual nature.  He would come to see that words have meanings only if there is a constant and abiding truth, and that human reason is capable of discovering unshakable answers.  Crossett rejected the constraints of the syllabus; he did not care whether his class was one week or more behind someone else's...He believed that good teaching always has a moral purpose and that that purpose is achieved when a student learns something true.  No method could compare with dialectic for forcing a student's mind to grasp and keep a true idea.  (from John Crossett: A Memoir in Hamartia: the concept of error in the western tradition: essays in honor of John M. Crossett)

A Modern Deficiency

"The modern world is conscious of many of its own deficiencies; it does not appear to be at all troubled about its lack of saints, although that is the deficiency that matters most of all and cannot be compensated for by anything else."  Lord Northbourne in Looking Back on Progress