You see, the intensity of a gifted child's rate of learning is only one piece of the puzzle (and some gifted children have learning disabilities or any number of other things that makes their learning rate "average" or even "below average"), and it may not even be the most intense characteristic of a gifted child. The brain wiring that makes a child "gifted" affects other parts of the child too. The intensity of learning ability is sometimes overshadowed by other intensities all together.
The best explanation for the intensity of gifted children that I've come across so far is from Dabrowski's theory of overexciteablities (OEs).
Overexcitabilities are inborn intensities indicating a heightened ability to respond to stimuli. Found to a greater degree in creative and gifted individuals, overexcitabilities are expressed in increased sensitivity, awareness, and intensity, and represent a real difference in the fabric of life and quality of experience. Dabrowski identified five areas of intensity-Psychomotor, Sensual, Intellectual, Imaginational, and Emotional. A person may possess one or more of these. “One who manifests several forms of overexcitability, sees reality in a different, stronger and more multisided manner” (Dabrowski, 1972, p. 7) - See more at: http://sengifted.org/archives/articles/overexcitability-and-the-giftedOEs can be rather intense for the child, and they can really affect homeschooling and the homeschooling parent. The rest of this post is going to discuss how the five OEs play out in our homeschool.
Imaginational Overexcitablity
"It's time to start school, girls! Everyone to the school room!" There are a couple sour faces as they abandon their play, and then Child A pipes up, "Let's keep playing during school!" Child B starts explaining to them all how they can keep up the imaginary play during lessons. Child C seems to be making a magic wand, and Child D runs up to me to explain the imaginary parts that they have all assumed and what names I need to call them all during the school day. I announce that we need to begin our day at Hogwarts and would all the little witches and wizards please have a seat. The imaginary play lasts 2 minutes into school when it gets out of hand because all the children are far more lost in their imaginations than in anything I'm actually saying. I recommend that we all just buckle down and focus on school work so that they have more play time at the end of the day. They relent. I read a little from our Bible lesson and call on Child D to begin re-telling the story. She does...with some unusual embellishments. I ask Child C if she can "help out that re-telling a bit." She straightens out the details but then adds in "They were all really hungry. I bet they would've liked pizza. I wonder if they had pizza in Bible times. Wouldn't it have been funny if they had pizza instead of manna!? I would love to go out and collect pizza every morning! If I were living in Bible times, and God sent pizza down every morning, I'd make pizza muffins for breakfast, and pizza noodles for lunch, and..." "Pizza NOODLES!?!" laughs out Child B,"How would you turn pizza into noodles!?" "Well.....," Child C begins. "WELL, how about we return to the actual Bible story!?!", I plead. We finish up and move on to a song.
Psychomotor Overexciteability
Child C asks if everyone can dance while we sing. I request that we focus on the song lyrics this time, but Child C needs to be moving, constantly. Some part of her must be in motion. She sits on a wobble cushion, but that's not enough. I give her a pencil and paper for drawing while we sing. They all want paper and pencil now. That's only fair. Later, during history, when it's her turn to answer a question, Child C gets up and walks around the room, and picks up a sibling, and puts her back down, and spins in circles, and does somersaults on the couch. All the children now think this looks fun. All the children now want to walk around the room and twirl and talk, and they all want to do it at the same time. I ask them all to sit back down and quiet down so that I can speak again. Now that it's Child C's turn to listen attentively, she starts crafting things with the odds and ends on and near her desk. She spills a bunch of little things. She flops to the floor as Child D shoots out of her chair to help. Child D runs the long way around to help, and suddenly she needs to talk nonstop about everything that she is picking up. Child D needs to show me every object and discuss it. She must talk nonstop now that there is that sliver of an opening in official school business. I bend over and help tidy up too just to speed things along so that we can get back to lessons, and my hair falls from out of its bun.
Sensual Overexciteability
"What's that smell!?" exclaims Child A from 4 feet across the room. "Well, I just let down my damp hair. I guess you could be smelling my shampoo (even though I can't smell it myself yet)." Child A is subdued, but Child B happened to be right next to Child A during the exclamation and is now upset because the loud exclamation hurt her ears. Child B sadly implores all children, "Can you please not be so loud!?! It hurts my ears!!" Everyone quiets down enough that I can finally try to remember where we were in the lesson until Child C starts crying because she just jabbed her hand into a pipe cleaner that she was supposed to be picking up and now she want to know if she can have a bandaid. There's no cut or blood, but she's pretty sure a bandaid is the obvious solution because "IT HURTS!!" "SHHH!! BE QUIET! MY EARS HURT!!" reminds Child B. I send her to get a bandaid as I take a quick bathroom break because at this point, I need 30 seconds of peace myself.
Intellectual Overexciteablity
When I return to the room, I tell Child A to go read one chapter in her science book, "just one," I emphasize, and then she is to come back to me and tell me about it. Meanwhile, I begin another lesson with B and C. Two sentences into the lesson, Child B raises her hand. I finish the train of thought and call on Child B who has a related but slightly off topic question. I try to answer the question quickly and get back to the main topic. She has more questions though, and those questions reminded Child C of some related things she'd like to discuss. Ok, that's all great. Let's write down these thoughts and discuss them afterwards. We get back to the lesson at hand, and when we finish, I ask them to tell me back what they just learned. Their re-telling takes as long as the original lesson did. I'm trying to subtly check the clock in the middle of their re-telling. They finally finish, and I call Child A back to tell me what she learned from her one chapter. Child D runs in. She's been crouching in the hallway listening in to the lesson of B and C, and she wants to get a turn to tell all about it too! Five minutes later, we return to Child A. She doesn't remember much from that chapter because she loved the book so much that she read 3 chapters. There went my lesson plans... In the middle of Child A's attempted re-telling of 3 chapters, Child B raises her hand again. She has a correction to make. Child A is wrong. Child A says she's saying it as the book told it. I look it up because at this point there is a full argument about it. Child A was right. Child B is now crying. How about we do Child B's favorite subject and then break for lunch everyone!?!
Emotional Overexciteability
Lunch is over. It's time to start lessons again. Child C is now crying because Child B had still been upset during lunch and so had accused Child C of not sharing enough. I give Child C some hugs and try to remind everyone to be kind to each other. That reminded Child B of another upsetting thing, and she is now crying again. I try to give her a moment to settle herself without drawing extra attention to her. Child D is now raising her hand and says in a sad voice that she tried to be kind and share during lunch but that Child B hadn't liked it. Child B is now sobbing...loudly. I give A, C, and D tasks to do while I step out of the room with Child B, who is now even more upset because she feels embarrassed now for being called out. Child B eventually settles enough to return to the school room where Child A is laughing hysterically because she thought of something funny. Child B announces that she has a headache now and her stomach hurts. C and D join in that they feel kind of unwell now too. Child A is quietly giggling to herself still. Let's move on to a calm reading, shall we!? You can all lie down and get comfortable.
Our lessons are finally done. As I stumble to my bedroom needing a few minutes to recover, I hear "I'm Harry's owl, ok?!" "No! You be Ron's rat! I was Harry's owl, remember!?!" "FINE! I'll be a homunculus, then!" There's a solid reason I have to start every school day with prayers for patient endurance...
