If there's one time of the year that students consider to be hallowed or holy, it's summer vacation. Any tampering that a school might do with this break is considered blasphemy against their sacred holiday. If a school system decided to introduce a program of graded projects for students to complete during summer vacation, it would be in their best interest to give students say in what they work on. School projects assigned over summer break should be student-designed because it would help foster a desire for learning, it would be easier to incorporate, and it would improve the experience of the teachers grading them.

When students spend hours and hours studying topics they have no interest in over the course of 12 years, it often creates a disillusionment with learning and the pursuit of knowledge. Summer is a time of escape from this tedium for students, and asking them to complete further teacher-designed projects over the summer would exacerbate the problem. If the school allowed students to choose a premise or topic of study for their projects, it would increase student engagement with and interest in completing the assignment. Granted, it would still be school work, and most students would still be frustrated with its presence in their vacation, but offering choice would allow more students to actively want to work on their project, learn more, and pursue their topic. School crushes intellectual curiosity. I've observed this in my life in the contrast between my and my peers' enjoyment of novels. I love to read, and do it often. Most of the people I know never read a book unless it's for school. This is because, from a young age, I had the choice to read, and reading was its own reward. For other students, they were forced to read, either in school or by their parents. In this system, reading was a means to reach a reward, whether it was a good grade on an assignment or a treat from their parents. Reading for fun offers them no reward. By forcing students to do projects they didn't choose over the summer, it further perpetuates the belief that learning is only good for getting the grade they want. Letting students choose their project would partly restore the connection between learning and enjoyment.

If officials attempt to institute these projects in a school system that has previously had no summer assignments, the push back from students and their parents would be immense. The school board would receive hundreds of cliched complaints of summer being "students' time to relax" and so on. Letting students design their projects would ease the tension. There would still be a grandly negative response, but once students learned that they would be allowed to choose a topic of study, it would assuage at least many of them. To illustrate, any class I've been that's had to read a novel for school has hated doing so (I outline why in the previous paragraph). Assignments where students got to pick their own novel or choose between a group of novels, though, were received with less vitriol. While students still didn't like the idea of having to read for class, having the choice of what to read meant they were more willing to do it. Students don't want to be told how they'll be spending their summers. If they choose their projects, they'll have less of a sense of being mandated and it will be easier to institute this assignment.

Now, some might say that giving students choice in their projects would lead to many not pursuing anything of value. If the purpose of the summer project is to "continue learning" when kids aren't at school, isn't it a risk to give students the freedom to research something unrelated to their academic studies? This is problem has a simple, obvious solution: these will be student-designed, teacher-approved projects. To experience the benefits explained in the previous paragraphs, schools need not provide students with complete freedom, only a feeling of choice. Teachers will be able to keep students on track by guiding them toward project topics that will assist them in the next school year, and students still get to pursue a topic they're interested in.

Finally, student-designed projects would offer teachers a less monotonous grading process. Throughout my school career, whenever we've been assigned projects where we're allowed to choose our topics of study, my teachers always comment that they're much more interesting and enjoyable to grade than other projects. Coming back to school after the freedom of summer is difficult for teachers too, and getting to grade projects students were passionate about creating is a way to ease into the year. For the next 36 weeks, teachers will be grading tedious collections of the same assignment. At the beginning of the year, they should have a collection of assignments that they can find some interest in reviewing.

Students treat summer with a protectiveness nearing religious fanaticism. Schools encroaching on this time could be met with disastrous results. Introducing a system of summer assignments could cause an uproar with the student body, but this would be lessened if students had the option to choose the topic of their projects. It's all about the choice. Having this choice stimulates students' intellectual curiosity, lessens the negative reaction to the assignment's institution, and makes everything far more pleasant for the teachers in the center of the affair.