Gifted students very often display an advanced or unusually mature sense of humour. Due to their perceptiveness, gifted children are very often able to perceive the absurdities, inconsistencies and incongruities of everyday life (VanTassel-Baska, 1998)
In the popular cartoon Daria, the main character Daria Morgendorffer demonstrates a dry, self depreacting humour that she effectively uses to deflect attention. (Conversely, this trait is often a tool that teachers can use to inform identification of gifted students - intellectually gifted students can 'break their camouflage' by their use of humour)
Humour can be used by gifted students to mask other emotions or deflect attention from their intellectual selves in order to obtain peer acceptance. Despite this characteristic being an oft-cited trait of intellectually gifted students, little research into this affective area has been conducted.
In our classrooms opportunities need to be found for these students to experience humour in a variety of forms - through film, cartoons, literature etc - in order for them to appreciate the impact humour can have, both positive and negative.
Imaginational Overexcitability
In the film (and novel by Katherine Paterson) the two main characters, Leslie Burke and Jesse Aarons both display imaginational overexcitabilities.
According to Dabrowski (1979) this overexcitability reflects a 'heightened play of the imagination with rich association of images and impressions, frequent use of image and metaphor, facility for invention and fantasy, detailed visualisation and elaborate dreams'. Such children often create their own imaginary worlds, characters and companions, often to escape boredom, loneliness or social isolation. These students may find rigid classroom work tiresome if it is at the expense of imagination and creativity. They may choose to draw, doodle or write stories instead of remain 'on task' as determined by the teacher.
According to Dabrowski (1979) this overexcitability reflects a 'heightened play of the imagination with rich association of images and impressions, frequent use of image and metaphor, facility for invention and fantasy, detailed visualisation and elaborate dreams'. Such children often create their own imaginary worlds, characters and companions, often to escape boredom, loneliness or social isolation. These students may find rigid classroom work tiresome if it is at the expense of imagination and creativity. They may choose to draw, doodle or write stories instead of remain 'on task' as determined by the teacher.
