Summer vacations are a much needed break for the teachers and students in school. Is is a time where students don't have to worry about the stress of grades, clubs, extracirriculars, or deadlines; also, teachers don't have to worry about grading papers, research projects, and the day to day stress of life. It's a nice time for a much needed break for both parties. Though called summer "break" or "vacation," many schools require classes to instigate a summer assignment meant to keep students learning over their time off. Schools should not require students to work on summer assignments over the summer because it causes more stress when summer vacation is not meant to, the content of the assignment is often meaningless and unfair, and because it is not inductive on the students' learning.

Summer vacation is meant to be a break from the stress of school, but to impose schoolwork on a student's break is only going to add to the stress of the student. As seen in many studies, stress and anxiety often affect a student's performance not just academically, but also in health and happiness. Most of the stress of students come from the workload of school. This is why we have been seeing so many more children, especially teenagers in high school, get depression, or anxiety and stress disorders than we have seen in the past.

Summer vacation is a perfect way to unwind and relax the brain to prepare for the next academic school year riddled with stress. With the added work of summer assignments, the stress will follow the student into summer vacation, preventing them from relaxing. The summer break is a very important part of school in general, to get away from some of the stress and to mentally, physically, and emotionally prepare for the oncoming year.

Summer assignments given to students often don't have any meaningful or significant information that the student needs to know. Most summer assignments have either new information from the new school year, or old information from the previous year. Why should a student, having already learned something, do it over again in a time of break? Why should a student learn something by themselves just to have to relearn it at school? From what I have seen, most of the assignments are review from the previous year, or completely new information that we have to learn ourselves. If a student already knows a topic, they shouldn't have to repeat it over and over, especially when its not going to help their education. If a teacher assigns summer work that goes over the information for the coming year, it's lazy. A teacher is suposed to teach certain things by a certain date, and if they can't, the student shouldn't have to teach it to themselves. That is what a teacher is meant to do! This is significant as not every child has the same educational opportunites as others, and subjecting them to learn and teach themselves topic makes the whole idea of summer assignments discriminatory. Some may not have access to computers, the internet, or even have English-speaking parents who could help them with their school work. This is important now, as the socioecrnomic gap in socisety has only widened, which is another reason summer work should not be required.

Due to summer assignments being done at home with no teacher guidance, students would most likely cheat by means of the internet, or friends. Of course, that kind of behavior is discouraged, but not actively being carried through. I have seen over and over friends copying off of friends, or dividing the work, or just purely copying word for word off the internet. This is bad as it does nothing to help the student learn with a meaning, espcially if they're just using someone else's words and ideas. Believed by psychologists, to fully learn and remember, one most encode the information with a meaning, which means to make a connection or association with it. This is significant especially now, as technology advances, there are so many apps and websites that help students cheat, which is not inductive to their learning.

I understand why some may believe that summer assignments should be required in order to allow the child to learn and become independent in their education, but that's not efficient or helpful to the students' education. If anything, the child will become more dependent on friends and the internet to find the information, and as stated before, most of the assignments, from what I have seen, only have the information that will be learned during the school year. This and the amont of unfairness in educational opportunities, is why students should be allowed to give their brains a break instead of worrying over summer assignments during the break,

School should not require classes to give out summer assignments because it would only cause stress in a preiod of de-stress, it is often meaningless and unfair, and because it often does not help the student learn meaningfully. This is important in terms of the hundreds of thousands students who have to deal with it, but it is not what schools should be focusing on. School administration should not worry about trivial matters such as school assignments, but rather making sure that every student has a stable environment, enough food to eat everyday, and has access to the same educational opportunities as everyone else to allow for them to flourish.