I just finished reading Living With Intensity, edited by Daniels and Piechowski. I thought that this was an older book that I just hadn’t gotten around to reading yet since I have seen it referenced in so many places but it turns out that it was published this year. It is getting a lot of attention!
For those of you familiar with Kurchinka’s term “spirited child,” parts of this book will sound familiar. Kazimierz Dabrowski was a psychologist who developed a theory of personality. In it he describes "overexciteabilities" or areas in which a gifted person may be particularly intense. "Overexciteability means that life is experienced in a manner that is deeper, more vivid, and more acutely sensed." (p 9) His theory delineates five overexciteabilities: imaginational, physical, emotional, sensual, and intellectual. Having worked with Kurchinka's term "spirited child" for some time, I was excited to discover how Dabrowski takes the same idea and breaks it into five areas. I had found so many of my students to fit under the term "spirited" but in many different ways. Dabrowski's theory adds more nuance so that we can better understanding of individuals. We can think in terms of one overexciteability or a combination of a few.
The little boy I had last year who kept drumming upon his desk every chance he got and played on three different sports teams after school definitely had physical overexciteability. The young girl who often cried as we read stories together as a class and could not join us for the Halloween Parade because of the the intensity of her fear of some of the costumes had emotional overexciteability. What a new way to think of my students! It also helped to validate their intensities by seeing them as one of five that many others share.
One of my favorite chapters is Daniel's chapter entitled, "Overexciteability, Giftedness and Family Dynamics." She cites research that "parents with strong overexciteabilities are likely to have children with strong overexciteabilities." She describes a few families in depth. I wish she had ten more case studies to share. It is fascinating to see how the different combinations of overexciteabilities in a family play out. A child with emotional overexciteability may be especially sensitive to a sibling's rambunctuous physical overexciteability. A parent with intellectual overexciteability may be exasperated by a child's sensual overexciteability and desire to change socks and clothing often because they "don't feel right." The same parent, however, might be lit up by another child with intellectual overexciteability who wants to discuss their favorite books or something they heard on the news that night.
I think this area is ripe for research. Even just a book full of case studies would help parents feel that they are not alone and that their are others wrestling with similar challenges. Research into the most effective parenting techniques to use in some situations would be extremely helpful.
Often, as a teacher, I think only of how giftedness plays out in young children. They are my day-to-day reality and I want to gather as much information as I can about them as young children to help them at this point in their lives. Ellen D. Fielder's chapter entitled, "Advantages and Challenges of Lifespan Intensity" and Stephanie S. Tolan's chapter entitled, "What We May Be: What Dabrowski's Work Can Do For Gifted Adults" really opened up a whole new aspect of my thinking about giftedness.
I always thought that we worked as a school to help a child through to eighth grade. We nurtured their gifts and helped soften their rough edges and, in my mind, by the time they graduated, we were sending off a more polished version of the child we had received in PreK or K. This child could function like an adult in the world. Incessant conversations about geography had been tamed (not turned off but brought more in line with conventional conversation). A child who lived with the fairies in her mind, now joined the world in which the rest of us lived. A child who only wanted to do math computation would now engage in a writing project. Fiedler and Tolan helped me realize, though, that each child's overexciteability would stay with them throughout their lives and continue to affect the way they interact with the world. While I still believe that it is much easier to find a niche in the adult world where one's quirks function best than it is to find that niche in the elementary classroom where one must study all subjects and interact with 20 other students on a daily basis, I do see now that the road continues to be interesting after eighth grade. I look forward to reading more about giftedness in those older than elementary school. How come I had limited myself to the age I taught?
Nonfiction is not usually my favorite reading genre but each night I couldn't wait to get back to this book. I saw so many of my students and friends reflected in its pages. This book also gave me a great sense of optimism. The student who drummed on the desk all year tried my patience some days. The child who asked me questions about current politics daily exhausted me. However, Dabrowski, feels that these overexciteabilities are necessary to move to the next level of development. Without this intensity, some people will not progress. I know that those students whose intensities made them to stand out in my eyes are well on their way.
