March 19, 2004

Making Students Toe the Mark

To the Editor:

In "Excuses, Excuses: Students' Sad, Endless Stories" (The Review, February 13), Rachel Brem expresses her frustration over being unable to get her students to meet various deadlines. ... Ms. Brem is facing a phenomenon that most of us educators have to deal with throughout our careers, and I would like to suggest an approach that has worked very well for me and my teaching partners.

At the first class, my colleagues and I distribute a detailed syllabus to all