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Build Social Value

Once again, Facebook exists to make the world more open and connected, and not just to build a company. We expect everyone at Facebook to focus every day on how to build real value for the world in everything they do.

 Zuckerberg defines social value here as more open and connected.  Good for him.  In his letter, he speaks of wanting to affect government in this way.  Kudos, because then the idea of democracy by the people would be more realized than the republican form of representation we have now.  I look forward to that day.  He also wants to the corporate world more connected and open so that they can take that quantum leap into advancing the same cause faster than it would normally advance by being more open and connected.  This would be nice.  It is logical that this could happen, and I hope it does because I am all for advancement of society.

But when it comes to the system that wants to control what our children think these days, there is a total nonsequitur between Zuckerberg's statement and the way the system is run.  First, the system is a basic quid pro quo system.  The people who run the system will give in return for all kinds of favors.  Thus, they can't afford for it to be too open and certainly not connected or they would be found out.  Promotion comes mainly from within the system in order to perpetuate the quid pro quo aspect it is built upon.  Those within the system have to conform at some point or they will be worked out of the system even if they have the talent to offer many new directions to it.  The youth see this model for 12 of their formative years in life.  Guess what model most of them will perpetuate!

Second, the system is built around so-called success for students.  It's an artificial success because the grading system is unbelievably faulty.  Parents think grades are based on a 100 point system when it is really a 50 point system.  The Bell curve is a mathematical reality for the students who attend, but the grading system alters the Bell curve so that students will look good for the community.  On a 50 point system (the upper 50 points from 50-100) the middle grade for which half of the students fall below and half above is a sham.  Administrators make extreme efforts to create the aritificial idea that 90% of the students should be in the upper half of the curve rather than 49%.  That means that almost half of students passing or graduating really ought not to be passing or graduating.  

Third, the system educating our youth has rhetorically given lip service to the integration of content areas.  But, the rhetoric is empty.  For upwards of 30 years, they have talked about integration of the subject areas.  Curriculum has even been made with this integration in mind.  But, nearly all children still take English, Math, Social Studies, and Science as separate subjects.  Connectedness is not a trademark of the antiquated configuration for children to learn in this system.  Real world value of the content areas doesn't exist in these compartmental instructional pods.

So, when Zuckerberg asks his employees to FOCUS on real world values, the children of the system in place now can't even think along the same lines as he does.  Real world means artificial, canned answers rather than real, flexible, sovlable problems that arise in a working environment.

I admire Zuckerberg for being able to take his company to the next level from the world in which he began his efforts and for having a vision to take his company to even higher levels with his aspirations for his workers.  And, he does have those kind of employees.  I just don't know where he found them.  He is speaking an obscure language like Pame (Mayan) to us English speakers.  Our children are basically outsiders to one of the best American companies ever formed.

It's the Zuckerbergs, however, that will lead the way into the next phase of civilization.  I wish he had one of the largest pools to draw from for his employee selections.  It's not true, however.  Most of them can click on Like and write a few words for their status.  But work for him, they could not do. They haven't seen "open and connected" in any experience in their 12 years of mind control from the model the system runs by to the curriculum they study.