The Piirto Pyramid of Talent Development is a theoretical framework which includes the genetic aspect, personality aspect, cognitive aspect, talent in domains, and five environmental “suns”—the Sun of School, the Sun of Community and Culture, the Sun of Home, the Sun of Chance, and the Sun of Gender. The catalyst for talent development is “the thorn,” the underlying desire to do the work. This session will describe a new book edited by the presenter. Twenty-two experienced teachers from three nations, who are experts in the arts, academics, and the education of the gifted and talented have written personal essays on how they emphasize creativity and the focus on the thorn while teaching advanced students advanced subject matters. Teachers of physics, calculus, science, literature, visual arts, foreign language, dance, theatre, visual arts, poetry, creative writing, discussed their strategies of teaching and assessment. Also included in the book are essays by a school principal and a guidance counselor. Together the authors have over 500 years of teaching experience of students from kindergarten through graduate school. Sixteen themes that are common throughout the essays will be the focus of this session. These themes include a counteroffensive to the current climate of multiple-choice assessment, single-target standards, and pressure to have students score high or be fired. Rather, these teachers emphasize that both teachers and students need to be encouraged to be their intrinsic creative and authentic selves. Another theme is that students should be encouraged to improvise, theorize, elaborate, discuss, explore, create, conjecture, ask why, and not to just focus on “the right answer.”