What student enjoys seeing that link on the school website saying, "Summer assignments"? Most students hate the idea of having to do a math packet or write a paper over the summer. Students, especially high school students want a break from all the grueling homework that they have to do throughout the school year, so the idea of a break sounds nice to them. If the idea of summer homework was up to students, most of them wouldn't do it. If students were to design summer homework, it would be the easiest assignments out there. There wouldn't be essays or math packets to do, instead there might be maybe 20 math problems and a book to read. Students deal with a lot of stress during the school year, so adding more homework and projects to do over the summer adds to what they're already dealing with. Summer is supposed to be a time of relaxation, getting away from school, if kids were in charge of those summer projects, there wouldn't be any.

That is why if there is going to be summer assignments, it needs to be teacher-designed.

A teacher-designed project or assignment is to help the student retain their knowledge of the previous year throughout the summer, so that they will be prepared for next year. Teachers are able to see the skills and struggles of students and they can base the project off of those areas. Most students will have about 3-4 summer assignments that could possibly be done in two weeks, but most wait until the last few days or weeks of summer to do them. Why? Kids want to be able to enjoy their summer without thinking about homework or school. A few weekends ago, I had a youth retreat to the mountains, I didn't think about school once that weekend and it was probably the most fun I'd had all school year. School is like bondage to students. They're forced to do homework, projects, and standardized tests. That's why they appreciate their time off from it all. If teachers don't take the initiative on summer assignments, students won't work on any schooling all summer long. Let's be real, as a teacher, would you do summer homework if your teacher didn't give you any?

Today's generation is known as the "Lost Generation", they deal with the stresses of social media, body image, and on top of that, school. Even though they deal with those things, schooling is still very important to every individual. Teachers need to make sure that their students are maintaining previous learned information so that they can succeed in the next school year. Students who are dealing with stress and anxiety would most likely not do the summer projects so that they can have a break. Most adults know that when leaving things up to children, they will either most likely not do what they're told or they would try to find the easiest way out of it. Allowing summer projects to be student led would be the dumbest idea ever. They would find easy ways to escape the project or they wouldn't come up with one in order to escape the stress that it brings with it.

While some may say that student-designed summer projects will allow them to use different brain muscles then they normally use during the school year. I would argue that as a student, most high school kids I know, if given the opportunity, would make it the easiest project ever. Kids today don't want extra work. They will take every chance they can so that they don't have to go to class or don't have to turn in their homework. For example, earlier this year my mom sent a note with me to school saying that I was to leave early because we were going to Generic_City for an event. Later that morning, my mom learned that we weren't able to go, but I still had my note to leave early. Normally I would've had to stay in school, but I pleaded with my mom so that I could leave early, because I wanted to get out of the rest of the day. The moral of the story is that kids today, especially towards the end of the school year don't want to do school work at all. Another example of this would be "Senioritis" where seniors just stop doing there work because it doesn't matter to them anymore. Even though student-designed projects do work another part of people's brains, kids would take the idea as a joke and would make the summer project very easy.

Teachers often know what's best for each individual student. When they give students homework it's often for their benefit. That's why, teacher-designed summer projects would be better than student-designed projects. Particularly because students wouldn't take the project seriously. If a project is for a grade, most students would take the assignemnt seiously. If the assignment is for extra credit or just practice but won't be a grade, then they probably woudln't do it. Students respect teacher's assignments if given, but if I were to give another student a summer assignment, they would luagh at me. Why? 1. They could care less if a student gave them an assignment and 2. they want the summer off. That's why a student-designed project wouldn't be successful to today's age.