There was a time when children were taught to be “seen and not heard,” and yet today, many of the world’s most powerful leaders and harbingers for change are under the age of 20. Here are five inspiring young people who are trailblazing for a new generation of activists and innovators.

1. Greta Thunberg: Climate change activist

Age: 17

Greta Thunberg started out as a lone protestor advocating for climate change policy and was eventually named . Since photos of her holding a sign outside the Swedish Parliament went viral, she has become the leader in a mass youth movement for climate change activism. In September 2019, 4 million people joined her in the global climate strike, many of them being school-aged youth who walked out of classrooms and schools. She has become a symbol of youth activism and continues to meet with some of the world’s most influential leaders, speaking at climate rallies, forums and parliaments.

2. The Parkland School Students: Gun control activists

Ages: 19, 20

Since the devasting school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018, many surviving students such as Emma Gonzalez, Jaclyn Corin, and David Hogg have become the of a large youth movement for stricter gun control laws. The students founded Never Again MSD, a coalition of the larger Never Again organization, and led the powerful march and demonstration “March for Our Lives” in Washington, D.C. They continue to lead and inspire youth activists who are advocating for gun control policies.

3. Thandiwe Abdullah: Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter LA Youth Vanguard

Age: 15

Abdullah is the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter LA Youth Vanguard and in 2018 was named one of TIME’s most influential teens. In the wake of movements like Never Again, she called for the youth gun control movement to become more intersectional, particularly when it comes to children of color. The LA Youth Vanguard organizes students and adult allies in the over-policing of Los Angeles’ public schools. The group also works closely with the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) labor union to campaign against the criminalization of black youth.

4. Jack Cable: Computer programmer, “white hat” hacker, and business owner

Age: 19

Many of us think of hackers as masterminds who use their tech brilliance to promote widespread havoc, sometimes for personal gain and sometimes for the sake of a joke. Jack Cable is a “white hat hacker,” a tech mastermind who finds and reports bugs rather than taking advantage of them. Cable is a student at Stanford University and the winner of the HackIT Cup in Kyiv, Ukraine, where the one-and-only Steve Wozniak presented his award. He also founded Lightning Security, a firm that helps cryptocurrency companies protect themselves against traditional hackers.

5. Sheku Kanneh-Mason: Cellist

Age: 20

Kanneh-Mason, the first BBC Young Musician to achieve “top 40” status with a debut record, began playing the cello as a six-year-old and had won a scholarship to the Junior Academy of the Royal Academy of Music by age nine. He participated on Britain’s Got Talent in 2015, and he was featured in a BBC documentary entitled Young, Gifted and Classical: The Making of a Maestro the next year. He has since received myriad awards, including the Male Artist of the Year and Critics’ Choice Awards at the Classic Brit Awards, the 2019 PPL Classical Award, and the South Bank Sky Arts Breakthrough Award, an honor bestowed on the “most promising young artist across all genres.” In May of 2018, Kanneh-Mason achieved widespread notoriety when he played his cello at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The same year, he was appointed the global ambassador for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He donated a chunk of his 2018 earnings to his former school, enabling ten students to continue their cello lessons. Kanneh-Mason currently studies at the Royal Academy of Music, and his latest album, Elgar, was released in January of 2020.

������Ƶ’s online (GRC) contains an ever-growing and robust listing of over 800 resources appropriate for gifted learners from preschool through high school. We carefully research and vet resources that span six categories, including Advocacy, Gifted Programs and Services, Schools, Scholarships and Competitions, Articles and Media, Twice-Exceptional.�� Based on these listings, we’ve also put together downloadable guides that organize these resources by category. So far, we’ve published two guides on and and aim to release a guide highlighting schools for gifted and advanced students throughout the United States.

Below is a list featuring 10 gifted schools in California that will be shared in our upcoming guide:

(Grades 6-12)

Eagle Rock Junior/Senior High School is an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School, located in Eagle Rock, California. ERHS serves students in grades 7 – 12 through a comprehensive junior and senior high school, as well as a Magnet program serving gifted, high ability, and highly gifted students in grades 7 – 12.

(Grades 6-8)

Portola Highly Gifted Magnet, established in 1979, shares the campus of Portola Middle School. It is the only middle school program in LAUSD designed specifically to meet the needs of highly gifted students.

(Grades K-8)

GATE Academy is a year-round day school dedicated to educating academically-gifted students in grades K–8 with an inquiry-based curriculum. They cluster motivated and cognitively gifted students in small groups with their intellectual peers and provide them with an inquiry-based, accelerated, self-paced curriculum in a school environment that celebrates them for who they are.

(Grades K-8)

Learning at Helios School takes place through meaningful authentic projects which may include field work, inquiry, discovery, direct instruction, and interaction with the environment. This project-based learning environment offers the rigor, depth, and complexity gifted learners need. Equally important, Helios students thrive socially.

(Grades 6-8)

The Knox School of Santa Barbara is private school serving K through 8th grade and specifically designed for the gifted learner. They seek to provide a stimulating and nurturing environment where, alongside an engaging and challenging curriculum, the social and emotional needs of gifted and talented students are respected and compassionately supported.

(Grades K-8)

Mirman School is an independent, co-educational day school for highly gifted children in grades K-8 located in Los Angeles. They cultivate the boundless potential of highly gifted children, nurture their passions and talents, and develop a diverse community of creative and constructive lifelong learners.

(Grades 9-12)

The Highly Gifted Magnet (HGM) was established in 1989 as part of the voluntary integration program of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its goals are twofold:��integration and a college preparatory curriculum that serves students who have an LAUSD intellectual assessment exam scoring in the 99.5%-99.9%.�� HGM students receive the benefits of a small academic program – a core of teachers and a small student body who know each other well, mixed with the advantages of attending a public, urban high school.

(Grades PreK-12)

Since 1967, Nueva has offered an innovative and award-winning learning experience specifically designed to meet the needs of gifted learners. By creating an inspiration community-based environment, Nueva seeks to unlock the passions, purpose, and potential in each student while inspiring a lifelong love of learning.

(Grades 6-8)

Walter Reed Middle School is a traditional school in North Hollywood, CA that implements a gifted curriculum model designed to offer a full program for many needs, including an IHP (Individual Honors Program) and a comprehensive program for students with challenging needs.

(Grades 9-12)

Whitney High School is a public magnet school in Cerritos, California serving students 7th through 12th grade, offering alternative education for high achieving students selected throughout the district. WHS strives to develop intrinsically motivated, collaborative learners who approach their education purposefully and creatively, preparing academically proficient students for entrance to and success at their best-match university.

Interested in exploring more schools and resources? Head over to our today!

If you’d like to help support ������Ƶ’s mission and increase your brand’s visibility nationwide, consider in our upcoming resource guide!

The schools listed above are not sponsored or endorsed by the Institute for Educational Advancement.

Anna interned with ������Ƶ over the summer, working closely with the . Here she shares her reflections on some of the things she has learned from the experience.

Prior to joining the team at the Institute for Educational Advancement, I spent a year working full-time in an LAUSD elementary school in South-Central Los Angeles as a mentor and tutor. After working 50-hour weeks in the second-largest school district in the nation, I was eager to gain in-classroom experience from the opposite end of the spectrum. I was drawn to ������Ƶ for its progressive philosophy; students here are grouped not by age but by their academic interests, teachers are given creative liberty to explore methods that work best to engage gifted students, and the individual student is taken seriously and respected.

On my first day working at the ������Ƶ Academy, I was immediately intrigued by the group of students that made up an organic chemistry class. The ages of the students ranged from six years old to twelve. Not only was each student fully engaged in the class, but each student was treated equally. The six year-old was not spoken down to or treated like a small child. I couldn’t help but think of the third graders I had spent the past year with; I can’t imagine how positively their educational experiences and overall senses of self would have been impacted if they could have been lucky enough to work in a similar environment.

The teachers at ������Ƶ come from a wide range of backgrounds – all of them passionate about the subjects they teach, and all of them passionate about teaching and making challenging content accessible. We had teachers designing scavenger hunts at The Huntington Library to enrich the Planetary Science class, teachers bringing ingredients to make crepes for the French culture class, along with teachers who worked their networks to bring equipment into the classroom from Caltech! Not only do these teachers have access to valuable learning resources, but they are valuable resources themselves as mentors. The intentionality behind each lesson was evident by the enthusiasm and engagement of the students. It’s a no-brainer that when teachers care, students learn more, grow more, and enjoy the class more. For this reason alone, ������Ƶ provides an invaluable educational experience to its students – an experience that would be defining, even revolutionary, if it could be implemented on a large scale in public education.

The Institute for Educational Advancement has opened my eyes to a different approach to learning – and it would be unfair for me to assume that ������Ƶ’s philosophy could only be realized in a place of learning for gifted children. I do believe that gifted students need autonomy, engagement, and collaboration in their learning spaces. However, I believe that this is true for all students. ������Ƶ serves as a special “learning oasis” for students who are not finding enough intellectual stimulation or challenge in their schools. I wish there were no need to provide this “special escape” to begin with. I do believe that we, as a community and state, are capable of implementing ������Ƶ’s successes in classrooms across a wide spectrum of neighborhoods and school districts.

Gifted children give us insight into what it really means to educate. We need to look no further than the minds of our brightest youth when looking for direction in teaching methods and education policy. If we just listened to what our gifted youth had to say about their educational experiences – both the highs and the lows – we would have all the answers we need. Our students know when they are learning in a way that motivates them to learn more, they know when their teachers care, and they know when their voices are being heard. The moment that we all take our children seriously and allow them to share their love for life and excitement to grow with us, we will have made a shift from developing students to developing leaders. At the Institute for Educational Advancement, students are heard. And what we are hearing is that they are learning, and that they are enjoying it.

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