ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a perspective on the importance of attention in understanding the complexities of classroom instruction and school learning. It presents an historical view of attention, learning and teaching. The chapter also discusses the modern view of attention, learning and teaching and presents information relating to the current controversy over engaged time and time-on-task. It explains the relationship between time and attention and analyzes speculations on the future of attention, tasks and time. The nature of sustained attention was discussed by both Morrison, an educator, and James, a psychologist. The importance of attention for learning was highlighted in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. The complexity of life in classrooms would appear to be geometrically increased when both sources of complexity are in operation at the same time. Psychologists and psycholinguists have conducted a number of empirical investigations of attention and learning over the past quarter century.
