Photo: iStockphoto
Tool or toy"
This is the question middle school teachers have been asking each other as they?ve noticed their classes filling up with tiny, hand-held devices that spin, click and whoosh.
Known as fidget toys, the gadgets were originally intended as tools to help children with attention deficit disorders, including ADHD. Research shows that having something in their hands to fidget with can provide kids with ADHD a sensory input that actually improves their focus and, as a result, helps them learn better in the classroom. The devices have become so popular, though, that students without attention disorders have begun bringing them to class, where they click, flick and spin them while the teacher presents the lesson. Whether kids get them as gifts from friends (fidget toys are the new hot birthday present) or from their well-meaning parents who believe the toys will help them focus, fidget toys are suddenly rampant in classrooms. The problem is, rather than improving learning, some teachers are saying that they’re causing major disruptions. ?Kids are playing with them when they should be listening,? says Lisa Johnson,* a grade six teacher from Ottawa. ?They?re passing them around to play with, they?re showing them to each other, they?re taking them apart and trying to put them back together again in the middle of a lesson.”

One popular toy, a two-inch vinyl device called the Fidget Cube, made headlines earlier this y...