Hi Edward, In career-oriented classes, I think the value of being attentive, focused, participative, engaged is more critical as expectations for job readiness are often at stake. In academic settings where meeting learning objectives (verified by testing) is the primary goal, a teacher may want to exercise more lattitude. One way to guage this is if not paying attention is a distraction to the teacher or other students, they need to either pay attenjtion or leave. Back to the career-oriented class, leaving may not be an option, and the student reguired to "be there". Barry Westling