I'm not a natural or prolific blogger but for Gifted Awareness Week this year the theme happens to be challenge, which was the theme of my first ever blog post, last year. What I wrote then may or may not 'hold up', and is something of a personal note about challenge, but for Gifted Awareness Week I thought I would re-visit my ideas and add those of the students I teach... at Gifted Kids, a one-day-a-week programme catering for the unique needs of gifted students, primarily those from low-decile communities (see www.giftedkids.co.nz ). It is part of our mandate to support students to experience and embrace new challenges. Thank goodness! With my young (years 3,4 and 5) and brand new class this year I was intrigued to watch their varying responses to challenging experiences. By 'challenging experiences' I mean new and unfamiliar things, difficult work, abstract work, a socially new and different environment, being pushed out of their comfort zone intellectually an...