Equity, social justice and transformational giftedness: A gifted academy in a vulnerable community

Given that uncertainty has become the signe des temps for our students in the current Covid-19 climate, one can pose the question: what types of skills would be relevant for the current and the next generation of students that would help them make sense of the changing world? School curricula and testing still anchored in the traditional mode of the 3Rs has resulted in a cadre of gifted students who have performed well academically but who have not been educated to reflect on using their "gifts" to transform society in just and meaningful ways. As opposed to being purely speculative on what transformative giftedness could be, we describe the genesis of a gifted academy- a school within a school situated within an impoverished community grounded in the principles of equity, social justice, and transformational giftedness. In this academy, the curriculum based on both socio-emotional learning (SEL) and problem-based learning (PBL), in tandem with interdisciplinary projects, provides avenues for the potential to transform students into making sense of uncertainty in the changing world in meaningful ways.