If you ask any school aged kid what their favorite season is, with the exception of very few, they will all tell you the same thing; Summertime. For a kid who has to wake at the crack of dawn, spend 7 hours doing work they likely wouldnt be doing if they weren't forced to, and then return home only to do homework, sleep, and then repeat all over again, summertime is pure heaven. It's a time for them to relax and spend their days baking in the sun and splashing in the pool with friends. In all this bliss, how can we expect children to keep themselves motivated on the schoolwork they left behind in the cooler months? Learning during the summer months would be heightened and more effective if summer projects were designed by teachers.

Each year brings new topics to learn for students. Their teachers prepare units for them to ensure they pass the class, and at the end of the year, students walk away with a plethora of new information they learned that year. Summer projects have the purpose of preparing us for the upcoming year, and how can students design a project meant to enhance their learning into the coming school year, if theyre not sure what they're going to learn? I understand they could be told in advance a topic that they'll be studying in the upcoming year and design their projects to be about that, but I don't believe that would be the best way to go about it. Their teachers know exactly what the students will need to know in the next year because theyre the ones that will be making the tests, grading their work, and teaching the students. If the teachers can assign the students to research and learn exactly what they'll need to know, it will optimize their learning and the students will enter the coming school year more prepared.

During the summer, the main priority of most kids is spending time with friends and family and having fun. If we leave students to design their own projects, most of them are not going to want to do it. Motivation, especially towards school, goes down a lot during these summer months. Kids are going to leave these projects to the last minute, and not give them their full effort, minimizing their learning. If we get teachers to design these projects, then students will know exactly what they have to do, learn the correct information, and won't have room to get lazy with details because they will have requirements set by the teachers.

Teachers have to go to four years of college, usually more, in order to have a job teaching. They get a salary, and benefits, because teaching the students is their job. It's not the students job to teach themselves, and since they can't be with the teacher during the summer, it's reasonable that if they're going to be doing work during their break, the teacher should at least design the assignment and not leave it all to the student. Students dont get paid for coming to school, and while free education is very valuable, the students are required by law to be there and have no choice but to take it. Students want to enjoy their summer break, and since most of their year is spent cooped up inside, its reasonable that teachers should have to design the projects and tell them exactly what to do, because the students are on break, and it is the teachers job.

Learning during the summer by the means of a summer project, would be optimized if the projects were designed and regulated by the teachers because many students lack the motivation, as well as the knowledge of what they'll be learning in the next year and how to most effectively prepare themselves for it. It is the teachers job to teach the student and assign them things that will benefit their learning. Summer is supposed to be the most exciting time of the year, and because kids only get so many of these carefree summers without responsibility, I think it's reasonable to ask that teachers take a slight weight off their shoulders and not ask them to design their own projects while at the same time steering them in the right direction and ensuring they are learning information that will benefit them in the oncoming school year.