Chase Jarvis: Education Must Be Disrupted

Photo by Michael Garcia.

CreativeLive co-founder and CEO Chase Jarvis recently appeared on a panel of thought leaders to discuss “Disruptive Classrooms” at Bloomberg’s Next Big Thing event in New York City. “I believe learning is at an all-time high and education is at an all-time low,” Chase asserted in front of a handful of his peers in the learning space: David Liu, COO of Knewton; Alicia Levi, Managing Director for PBS Media; and Stephen Sawd, CEO and President, Rosetta Stone.

Chase’s bold point: Our education system is inherently flawed because it values testing and “laddering up” over learning. Instead of looking at education as a means for getting to the next level, Chase says, we need to provide education that empowers students to chart their own path. “Creativity is the new literacy,” Chase said, reiterating his powerful call-to-arms. “Creativity is more than art; it’s the access to human creative potential, which solves all problems.” That’s where CreativeLive comes in. “Your parents had 1 job, we will have 5 jobs in our lifetime, and our kids will have 5 at the same time,” Chase explained, as evidence of the rapidly shifting professional landscape. Tests and college degrees are no longer the stamps of approval they once were. “[Students are] living this narrative, which is a completely false narrative, which is if you get good grades and go to college you’ll leave and have a great job,” Chase warned. And yet, Chase is emphatically optimistic about the fact that we are building a new world order. “This is the brightest time in the history of education, because there’s so much opportunity,” Chase emphasized. “It is the largest industry in the world that has not been disrupted.”