there is beauty and knowledge in dried macaroni....

ok, so this from gawker.....and then the rant will commence.....

The NYT goes deep today and uncovers an insidious new trend: parents who moved to the suburbs for the schools, only to discover that suburban public schools kinda suck, too. At least, they're not up to the high standards of the ridic parents the Times managed to unearth, including one mother who was so horrified that her son was making dried macaroni art projects in first grade that she whisked him into a school "where teachers have encouraged [her son's] curiosity through projects like building an arch and studying rocks and bones found nearby." Ooh, studying rocks and bones! That's worth $25K a year, for sure.

dear mamma horrified,

there are many things that should horrify a mother about the state of schools today...but dried macaroni projects isn't one of them.......macaroni is organic..making it easy to glue on to....what-ever and where-ever......and this is a win-win result for the average 1st grader.....glueing something onto something else and having it stay......hard to to accomplish with rocks....and since self-expression is what you are looking for...there are so many sizes and shapes of pasta as to make each and every project unique.....pasta absorbs paint nicely.....allowing for even greater artistic impression with colorization...than say.......the same project with rocks.......as for me...i treasure a Christmas ornament encircled with farfalle made by my middle child, currently in his second year at an ivy league school.....note that the same ornament encircled with rocks would never stay on the tree branch....and let us not forget popsicle sticks......my eldest made the most precious star of david out of this versatile material.....and christmas would not be christmas without that cross on the top of our tree.......self-expression with rocks?....sounds good on paper, but in reality always go with the macaroni or the sticks.........these cozy projects always have a place on the refrigerator.....where simple magnets hold them up for public awe...the rock projects.....they tend to fall apart in the car....and rarely survive long enough for full kudos.........

MeanMamma (of successful dried macaroni/popsiclesticks scholars.......)