Today we’d like to introduce you to the Academy Program at the Institute for Educational Advancement.
Hello Institute for Educational Advancement, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
The Institute for Educational Advancement (IEA) was founded 26 years ago to support the needs of gifted children. Our co-founder and president, Elizabeth Jones, realized there was a severe gap in meeting the needs of this specific population of students. They are often overlooked, and many schools are not equipped to support them. Elizabeth wanted to offer a place where these children could grow and learn intellectually and personally on their own while supporting all aspects of self.
While we are based in Pasadena, our community stretches across the country through our high school scholarship program (the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship) that students can apply for in 7th grade, our Yunasa summer camps in Michigan and Colorado, and our EXPLORE program which provides mentorship, hands-on workshops, and research opportunities for high school students. Since our inception, IEA has proudly served over 12,500 students nationwide.
The Academy program at IEA launched in 2010 and provides year-round enrichment courses for advanced and curious learners ages 6-14. We started in our offices in South Pasadena, then moved to a learning space in San Marino, held classes at a few different local elementary schools, and eventually settled into our Learning Center in Pasadena. This lovely craftsman home serves as a warm, welcoming community and classroom space and sits across the street from IEA’s main administrative office.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
One of the ongoing challenges we face is getting people to understand the scope and impact of our Academy program. Once they visit the Learning Center, see one of our classes, or even talk with us on the phone, they start to understand that we are more than just traditional enrichment classes! Supporting the unique needs of advanced learners requires supporting and serving the whole child, this requires an expertise that our exceptional staff has learned and honed.
Another challenge is the identification of gifted students in traditional school settings. It may seem counterintuitive, but school is often not an enjoyable experience for gifted students. A goal we have is to find more opportunities to provide professional development opportunities in schools on how to identify and work with gifted students. Gifted often does not present as high achieving in the classroom. It may present as “being bored,” “behavior problems,” or “not following directions.” For a young student who answers the math problem correctly but gets it wrong because they didn’t show their work or who gets a lower grade on their science project because it didn’t follow the specific criteria the teacher gave them, school can become a place that doesn’t get them. Being gifted can be frustrating, and we want to help provide teachers and parents with resources to better support their advanced learners.
We’ve been impressed with Academy Program, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
The Institute for Educational Advancement’s Academy program is a community of advanced and curious learners who are eager to dive deep into a variety of topics. At Academy, students have an opportunity to take interdisciplinary and hands-on courses that they would not find in a traditional classroom setting, like LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Robotics, Decoding Media, Musical Math, Programming with Python, Paleozoology, and more! Our teachers are specialists in their fields and provide learning opportunities that allow these gifted children to tap into their intellectual strengths in a child-friendly capacity with other curious students. For many children, IEA is the first place where they can meet other children who are like themselves. A place where they are accepted for exactly who they are.
On a Wednesday, you may see students in a deep discussion about the upcoming election in their Power to the People class while Aeronautics and Astronautics students check on the status of their 3D prints in the lab. Later in the day, Academy Times students rush to finish their articles for the upcoming newspaper issue while a Periodic Table: Essential Elements student chats with his teacher, asking her to quiz him about elements. He loves this game. If you say any number between 1 and 118, he will tell you what element it is. He’s eight years old. During outdoor break time, some students will be playing tag, a few will be on the porch with their brushbot robots (made from electric toothbrushes), while others engage in a heated discussion about the Titanic – a walk and talk that Aaron Sorkin would be proud of. This is a typical day at IEA.
Many of our Academy students are neurodivergent and have not always found success in academic environments, but they find success here. We recognize that learning is different for everyone, and our Academy team gets to know each student from their initial portfolio-based application, learning styles in the classroom, and time spent talking with students and parents on the porch between classes. We do our best to understand each child’s learning needs and set them up for success.
In addition to our Academy classes, we also partner with the Pasadena Unified School District to provide Innovation Clubs for students, an on-campus gifted extracurricular program. This year, we supported 7 PUSD schools and served 170 students. It culminated in the district-wide Innovation Exposition, where our students submitted projects in 3D Printing, Environmental Innovation, Invention, Reverse Engineering, Science Fiction Writing, and Scientific Inquiry. Quite a few of our students ended up placing or winning in their categories.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Our families often struggle to find the appropriate learning environment for their child. Neurodivergent or twice-exceptional (intellectually gifted individuals who have learning disabilities) children often feel out of step at school, and families can find it difficult to locate a school that can meet the asynchronous needs of their child. While there are wonderful schools in West Los Angeles, like Bridges Academy and Qualia, one school doesn’t fit every child, and for our families on the Eastside, the drive is not realistic. We wish that there were more affordable school options available for twice-exceptional students. Giftedness exists across all socioeconomic backgrounds, and access to appropriate learning environments is limited.
We love Los Angeles because there are so many amazing resources and opportunities available to our students and families. Currently, we are offering an online course called Einstein’s Theories: It’s All Relative. Students taking that course can walk less than a mile from our Learning Center and see the house that Einstein lived in while he was on faculty at Caltech! Our Maker Art History students just learned about Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and now they can drive 20 minutes with their families to Luna Luna. LA offers world-class museums, galleries, parks, and places to satisfy anyone’s thirst for knowledge.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.EducationalAdvancement.org
- Instagram: @IEAGifted
- Facebook: @IEAGifted
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/institute-for-educational-advancement/
- Youtube: @IEAGifted
