School, a crucial building block of a child's life where one finds them self. Year in and year out students are forced to be condemned to these dreary halls where information is crammed into their brains 7 hours a day, five days a week. But there's a small period in every year that students get a much-needed break, that being summer vacation. A few months in the heat of the year students take a break from school to regroup themselves and spend tie with their friends and family. In order to retain the information that students have obtained throughout the year, and keep their minds active teachers will assign books to read and projects to complete before the school year starts. These summer projects however, are time, energy, and effort spent during what is supposed to be a child's vacation so you would think that the student should be able to do something that they are interested in, right? Summer projects should be student designed because of the time, skill, and effort that will be displayed differently by every student.

In order to get the brain back into the school mode for students, it takes time. Time vary between everybody because no one is on the same schedule. One person that has done nothing all summer will have a lot more time to complete a good, well thought project, versus someone that's been away at sleep away camp all summer. Why should it be the teachers right to decide how much time you should be able to get on a project they assigned having no idea about your plan for the summer? If a student was allowed to make their own project based on what they have time for, the project will be a lot better than if they crammed a ton of information they are not prepared for with that small amount of time. Projects would not only be neater, but more sophisticated because they did what they could do with the time they set aside. No one teacher could possibly know how much time you have, but also the true amount of skill that you also possess.

Going into the year the teacher does not really know what you can do from an academic standpoint yet so why should they assume your skill with a before school, summer project? In order for a teacher to get a feel to where your ability level lies, they must first get to know you and see your potential. A project that is assigned to one student could be in someone's wheel house, while another kid could really struggle on the subject that the project is on. There is no way of knowing unless the project is driven by what the student wants and what the student is able to achieve. Students should be able to harness their abilities for their summer project that will also display their effort.

Effort for school in the summer is not something that any student would want to do. Being cooped up inside doing a project for school instead of going to the pool with your friends is something that I'm willing to bet, no kid would choose to do. If students were allowed to choose their summer project they might be more willing to put in effort versus some boring, strict guidelines thing that a teacher would assign. Effort is hard to get out of a kid during the long, dog days of summer, so how can you expect them to put in their effort on something they know is painful and creativity destroying? The effort shown from students still might not be sufficient, but it will be better if it's something the kid wants to do, and not just assigned from a teacher. Kids want freedom, and with freedom to decide your project thats due at the end of summer vacation only seems right. If you're going to make students work on their vacation at least let them do it by their standards, and don't just tell them blatantly what to do.