What is the history behind one of the most helpful technological advances of our time, the microscope?
A cheek cell. An onion cell. An upside-down e. A drop of green pond water, teeming with writhing shapes. Most of us, at some point in our education, have peered into a microscope at the miniscule, silent world at the end of the lens. In fact, it would be hard to imagine a complete science classroom without one of these valuable instruments.
“ It would be difficult to overestimate the immense impact the invention of the microscope has had on the world these past several centuries, or to fully realize the number of scientific breakthroughs and technological advances allowed by its peering lenses. ”
While ancient writings mention the use of glass and possibly even forms of crude lenses to magnify objects, the microscope as we know it is relatively new technology, developed and perfected over the past several centuries. Though there is some debate over the exact beginnings of the modern microscope, the story typically begins in a small spectacle shop in Holland.
A New Way of Looking At Things
During the late sixteenth century, the young Dutch spectacle maker Zacharias Janssen and his father, Hans, experimented with glass by lining up several convex lenses in a tube and focusing the tube on a nearby object. Light would bend and magnify the image, making the object appear more detailed and three to nine times larger. Their discovery led to the development of the compound microscope, in which an objective lens is fixed near the specimen and the eyepiece lens is placed near the eye. Independent work done with magnifying tubes by fellow Dutch optician Hal Lippershey and the Italian scientist, Galileo, also played a part in developing the compound microscope.
The following decades brought a heightened interest in the microscope, primarily as a novelty to amuse the rich, but also increasingly as a scientific tool. In 1661, the Italian physiologist Marcello Malpighi was able to describe the network of pulmonary capillaries in the human body based on his microscopic observations. The brilliant scientist and creationist Robert Hooke improved the design of the compound microscope and used it to observe and record unique microscopic details of nature. He published the results in 1665 in his landmark volume Micrographia, a collection of thirty-eight copper plate illustrations of observations such as the detailed structures of a flea and body lice and the minuscule units of cork tissue, for which he coined the term “cells.”
In 1673, while Hooke worked as the Curator of Experiments for the newlyformed Royal Society of London, the organization began receiving insightful and lively letters from a Dutch tradesman named Antony van Leeuwenhoek, who reported observing “Animals” (bacteria and protozoa) in pond water and teeth scrapings, as well as blood cells, yeast, and other single-celled entities. Inspired by Hooke’s Micrographia, van Leeuwenhoek made over five hundred single-lens microscopes as a hobby, and although they were very simple structures, the lenses he grinded were the best in Europe—with a magnification of up to 270 times—producing microscopic images never before seen.
For fifty years, Van Leeuwenhoek’s long, descriptive letters were published in the periodical Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London,inspiring other scientists to look through an eyepiece as well. He wrote in one letter to the society:
took some of this flower and mixt it . . . with pure rain water wherein were no Animals . . . and then to my great surprize perceived that the aforesaid matter contained very many small living Animals, which moved themselves very extravagantly.
[T]heir motion was strong & nimble, and they darted themselves thro the water . . . as a Jack or Pike does thro the water. (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London,Vol. 14, 1684, no. 159, pages 568–74; reprinted inMilestones in Microbiologyby Thomas D. Brock, American Society for Microbiology, 1999)
Though Van Leeuwenhoek was thorough in reporting what he observed, he was very secretive about his process for grinding and illuminating his superior lenses, and consequently it was over a century after his death before compound microscopes were as excellent as the single-lens ones made by Van Leeuwenhoek.
Technological Advances
Some important discoveries were made with early microscopes, and great advances were made in their quality, but the lenses were still relatively weak. There was also often a blurred ring of color, a “halo,” around the edge of the image. These problems, which hindered the scientists’ ability to undertake more sophisticated research, were resolved in 1830 when Joseph Jackson Lister, a wine merchant by trade, proceeded to create a specialized lens for the microscope by layering several weak lenses together, enlarging the view of the specimen while eliminating the hazy images that blurred the view. With these improvements, Lister ushered in the modern era of microscopy.
Other advancements in the construction and use of microscopes during the 1800s include Ernst Leitz’s invention in 1873 of a revolving mount for five objective lenses, as well as August Köhler’s superior illumination technique, developed in 1893, and still referred to today as “Köhler illumination”. Much of the rapid progress in medical research that began during the late nineteenth century, such as the monumental work done by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch regarding the role of bacteria in the spread of disease, was made possible by the new advances in the technology of manufacturing microscopes.
All of the microscopes used into the early part of the twentieth century were optical microscopes, which use light beams to create a magnified image, but the wavelength of light limits the visibility of even the most specialized optical microscopes. Max Knoll and Ernst Ruska broke past this barrier in 1931 by inventing the electron microscope, which can now magnify an object up to two million times by focusing a beam of electrons onto an object, allowing smaller units such as cellular ribosomes and viruses to be viewed and studied. Many of the detailed photos of microscopic organisms and structures published in contemporary science books have been taken with some type of electron microscope.
Those early researchers would probably be impressed, or even awed, by what can be seen today with just a common student microscope. Yet there are now over forty types of microscopes to choose from which they could choose in essentially every field of science, utilizing not only light or electrons to produce images, but also technologies such as magnetic forces and X-rays.
It would be difficult to overestimate the immense impact the invention of the microscope has had on the world these past several centuries, or to fully realize the number of scientific breakthroughs and technological advances allowed by its peering lenses. This revolutionary tool has taken us to hidden places beneath our feet, within our food, and even inside our own bodies, revealing to us a realm of God’s creation that, without the microscope, would still be unknown.
For merely to say that the discovery of the microscope enlarged the scope of our vision sounds utterly pedestrian. It did much more that that: it replaced the world we lived in with a “plurality of worlds,” each of them an abyss, a labyrinth, a universe replete with its own beauties and its own terrors. We used to see from the elephant down to the mite: thenceforth we had a world populated with tiny animalcules to whom the mite was elephant.Introduction by F. Gonzalez-Crussi, M.D., toMicrobe Huntersby Paul DeKruif, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1926)
by Laura Phipps
http://www.homeschooltoday.com/news/38/30/The-Microscope/
Within the widespread growth of homeschooling families across the United States there is a small but growing community of parents who have dedicated themselves to giving their children a home education. These parents, at all costs, are striving for academic excellence in their children's lives. What makes this small community stand out from other homeschooling families? These home schools stand out because they are run by one parent. These parents don't often receive the accolades that they deserve, but the movement toward single-parent homeschooling is growing. So how do single parents home school their kids and work full time? They understand a few key qualities that must be in place.
Always be Flexible
Single parents that establish a home school need to remain flexible in their way of thinking and educating. Unlike formal education the homeschool atmosphere is one of open learning. Parents can schedule instruction around their availability regardless of their work schedule. Instruction hours can be completed in the evenings after work and on the weekends. While parents are at work children can be working on independent studies. Some areas may offer opportunities for older children to volunteer daytime hours to help out in a local community event which can count towards learning service hours.
Lean on Others
In some households the need to find support to lean on may be more necessary than others. If you have only small children asking help from friends, family and your church family are excellent resources for day time child care. Some hired babysitters may also be willing to assist with academic activities during the day.
In addition to family and friends single households should utilize a variety of resources for parents to strengthen their approach in their role as head of household and home educator. There are many support networks both online and locally to help families establish curriculum, schedule their days and find other families in their area to connect with. Often these programs will provide scheduled activities for homeschooled children to participate in with other parent volunteers to supervise. This could be another support possibility for single parents needing day time assistance.
Behavior Problems
While behavior problems are a real possibility in every household this should not discourage single parents from homeschooling. By maintaining discipline in the home parents can successfully home-school their children and discourage bad behaviors. It is crucial to seek support from family and friends for the hours parents are away and to have clear guidelines in place for your child to follow. Talking with neighbors and asking them to phone you at work if something should arise that appears out of the ordinary is another option to maintain discipline. With the proper support in place single parents can successfully handle behavior problems while offering a home education.
Learning Disabilities
Another obstacle that can discourage single parents from homeschooling are learning disabilities. While learning difficulties, such as ADHD and dyslexia can inhibit learning it is important for to consider that home is the best environment for the struggling learner. There are many free resources available to help parents determine their child's learning needs and where to find support for that specific need.
In the home, special learning environments can more readily be implemented for each specific student as opposed to that of a formal classroom. Where teachers are limited in what they can offer a struggling learner, parents have full control over child specific curriculum and the freedom to make learning a success. With the flexibility of homeschooling parents have an unlimited number of options to provide a home education that will accommodate any learning disability.
Being a single parent brings with it many challenges and at best demands a level of humility. For this small group of single parent home schools it is that humility which drives them to provide their children with the best education possible. Through taking advantage of resources, leaning on others for support and maintaining discipline in the home they are an inspiration to all parents, and encouragement to single parent households that are ready to take that plunge and provide their child with a home education.
About the Author:
Michedolene Hogan is a homeschooling mom of her four youngest children and the publisher of Unique Parenting. Her site aims to encourage parents to develop a unique approach to parenting and focus on building strong families. Michedolene lives in a quiet neighborhood in Yucaipa CA with her husband, four younger children and adult step-son.
http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/teacherslounge/articles/homeschool_as_a_single_parent.php
As parents become increasingly concerned with both the intellectual and moral decline of public education, home schooling is rapidly on the rise in the United States. And with the increased popularity of home schooling have come the attacks on it by its enemies in the public education establishment.
At the heart of this fight over home schooling is a fundamental difference between parents and the public school establishment on the questions of parental rights and religious liberty. Most parents who educate their children at home do so because they see it as their duty to inculcate the moral and intellectual virtues in their children, and to raise them as practicing members of their religious faith.
But the union officials and career bureaucrats who control the public education establishment seem to think that the state — not parents — is primarily responsible for the raising of children and for instilling in them the beliefs it deems most important. Parental involvement is too often viewed as "interfering" with the "professionals" who know best.
Where did this attitude of the public education establishment come from? It certainly represents nothing new in American politics, as its roots can be traced to the founders of modern American liberalism, the progressives.
The general view of progressivism, which peaked at the beginning of the 20th century, supported a vast expansion of state power and a complete devotion of the individual to the common enterprise of the state. Contrary to the thinking of America's founders, who had established clear lines between the public and private, and therefore strict limits on government, the progressives argued that government was, in principle, unlimited because it was based upon scientific expertise.
The leading magazine of progressive opinion in the early part of the 20th century — The New Republic — insisted that children be made to remain open to the secular ideas that the state needed to instill in them. It explained that "the older view of eighteenth-century liberalism was that the democratic state must allow every one freedom to practice almost any creed, . . . but twentieth-century democracy believes that the community has certain positive ends to achieve, and if they are to be achieved the community must control the education of the young." Parents could not be allowed to instill in their children any contrary teaching. Under this new view of education, The New Republic argued, "the plasticity of the child shall not be artificially and prematurely hardened" by private religious education. The progressives attacked parental rights as "the freedom of older people to impose their dogmas on the young."
This argument of the progressives came from the German idealistic philosophy with which most progressive intellectuals had been educated. Karl Marx himself made a direct attack on home schooling, explaining that parental rights over the upbringing of children could not be allowed because parents exploit children. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx asks: "Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty." He mocked "the bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child."
This philosophic attack on parental rights, brought into the American tradition by progressivism, has reared its head at various points throughout our contemporary history. In the famous 1972 case of Wisconsin v. Yoder, where the state attempted to force Amish students into public high school, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas reasoned that parents who eschew public education may very well be impermissibly forcing their own religious views down their children's throats. Just as the progressives had resisted the right of parents to instill their religious beliefs in their children, Douglas wrote that "the inevitable effect is to impose the parents' notions of religious duty upon their children." The fundamental premise for Douglas was that children needed the state's protection from the religious views of their parents. In making educational choices, Douglas insisted that "it is the student's judgment, not his parents', that is essential."
If this sounds familiar, it is because it is the same attack on parental rights and religious liberty made by contemporary liberals like Hillary Clinton, who want to "protect" children from the values of their parents.
Fortunately, the Court in the Wisconsin v. Yoder case upheld the "traditional interest of parents with respect to the religious upbringing of their children" — Justice Douglas' dissent notwithstanding. But views like those of Douglas and Mrs. Clinton only show that the troubling tenets of progressivism continue to find adherents, something home schooling parents know well as they fight to fend off the public education establishment.
https://www.claremont.org/publications/precepts/id.193/precept_detail.asp
SARASOTA, Fla. - The day starts early in Linda Knipper's Sarasota classroom. Pencils are sharpened, books are out, eyes are focused — and "Knibbles," the dog, is under the table, at the children’s feet.
For Laura, Kayla, and Megan, the classroom is just off their kitchen.
A former teacher, Linda says traditional schools simply waste too much time and she was convinced she can do better at home.
"I could be right there with them, and I just thought there was just a richer environment there for them," says Knipper.
She's not the only parent taking a more hands-on approach.
Across the country, home-schooling book fairs and magazines now cater to families — many of them religious — who are concerned about school violence, the social scene, and the quality of education.
"A lot of them are just tired of everything that goes on in the school system," says Karen Tompkins, a Christian home school advocate.
In Florida, the number of home-school students has nearly tripled over the past ten years. Nationally, the United States Department of Education says the number has swelled to more than a million kids. Home-school experts say it's even higher.
Oregon researcher Brian Ray, of the National Home Education Research Institute, estimates two million kids are now taught at home.
"In the last four years, we think home schooling has grown at least 30 percent," says Ray. "Study after study, many of which I've done, have shown that home-schooled children are well above average — 15 to 30 percentile points above on standardized achievement tests."
Ray points to last year's first and second place winners of the National Spelling Bee -- both home-schooled. And now even Harvard University says it accepts home-schooled applicants.
Still, skeptics say traditional schools are better at developing social skills, conflict resolution, even test-taking — and doubt whether home-schooled kids get enough hard science.
That’s not so, say the parents, who often band together and turn to community colleges, 4H clubs, and the Internet for lesson plans and resources.
"I want them to develop a love of learning… a home-grown love of learning, to last a lifetime," says Linda Knipper.
Homeschooling or homeschool (also called home education or home learning) is the education of children at home, typically by parents or professional tutors, rather than in a public or private school.
Although prior to the introduction of compulsory school attendance laws, most childhood education occurred within the family or community, homeschooling in the modern sense is an alternative in developed countries to formal education.
In many places homeschooling is a legal option for parents who wish to provide their children with a different learning environment than exists in nearby schools. The motivations for homeschooling range from a dissatisfaction with the schools in their area to the desire for better academic test results. It is also an alternative for families living in isolated rural locations and those who choose, for practical or personal reasons, not to have their children attend school.
Homeschooling may also refer to instruction in the home under the supervision of correspondence schools or umbrella schools. In some places, an approved curriculum is legally required if children are to be home-schooled. A curriculum-free philosophy of homeschooling may be called unschooling, a term coined in 1977 by American educator John Holt in his magazine Growing Without Schooling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling
