Summer is ment to be a break from school where students are allowed more freedom to choose what they want to do. For two thirds of the year students are told exactly what to do and when to do it. What to wear, where to go, what we can do at home. So when summer rolls around, students expect more freedom when it comes to deciding what they want to do. That's why school assigned summer projects should be student designed to allow more student freedom,

foster out of school learning and to relieve the stress from students.

A teacher designed summer project would limit student freedom, something students get little of during the year. Summer break is meant to be a break from the teachers and the school work, so for the school to give a break and then assign teacher made summer projects seems very hypocritical. A teacher designed summer project is the equivalent of giving a kid a toy and saying that if you don't play with it the exact way that I say, you'll be in big trouble tomorrow. That's why if summer projects are necessary, they should be designed by students.

Another reason as to why summer projects should be student designed is so that students could learn things that they wouldn't have in school. A teachers assignment would probably have something to do with completing math problems or to reading about a famous person in history. That's fine, but they could do those things during the school year. A better use of their time would be to write about experiences they had during the summer like about a job we had or a place they went. Because school gives students a base learning of most subjects so they are better rounded, but school doesn't usually help students when it comes to deciding what they want to do and taking that next step towards a career. Let the students choose what they want to learn about during the summer helps them further their own specific learning rather than the group base laerning they do in school.

Finally, the reality of it is that a student designed summer project would most likely be easier than a teacher designed one. Students have just come off a month off non stop testing and studying, they don't need to be weighed down by the fact that they have a difficult project they have to do, on top of a summer job or other responsibilities students get over the summer. Students have earned a period to destress and a student designed summer project could help with that, because they could knock it out in a day and be free for the rest of the summer.

Some people might say that a student designed summer project would defeat the purpose of having one because theyll still forget what they have learned. They are wrong because no matter the difficulty of the project it will benenfit the student by getting their brain working during the summer. A student designed project is better for students 