My students became upset because, in this class, their usual split attention (looking at their phones; listening to their classmates) felt wrong. It devalued their classmates’ life stories (and their own) and made them feel that they were crossing some moral line. They could imagine a day when people around you would be upset and you would still be pulled away to your phone. A lot is at stake in attention. Where we put it is not only how we decide what we will learn; it is how we show what we value.
