September 26, 2003

How to Make Students Behave

To the Editor:

I have never understood the kind of complaints reflected in David D. Perlmutter's "Yes, You're Brilliant. Now Shut Up." (The Review, August 8). I attribute the troublesome behavior entirely to faculty inaction. ...

In my experience, the remedy is easy: preventive action at the outset. I make my behavioral expectations clear in the first class and tape my lecture (and all subsequent ones) so that any students not at the first class can get the point. If a student