There is no question about the importance of education. It is an international priority; the prosperity of a nation is often measured by how educated its people are. The debate now lies within how to go about delivering education to students. It is understood that summer months are a perfect time that students should spend learning. Summer projects should be student-designed because students understand their personal needs best, can balance their project and their free time, and will be more likely to work harder on their projects.

One might argue that students will take advantage of the control that they will be given and will give themselves minimal work. The fact of the matter is, teachers will implement guidelines and requirements for the projects that students will design, which will keep them from being able to cut corners with their work. If teachers were to design these projects, students would lose a valuable opportunity to learn the life skill of self-direction.

Summer projects should be designed by students because students have a better understanding of what they need to spend extra time practicing. In the Generic_City Public Schools system, all students are given a period every other day that they can spend with a teacher in case they need extra time to review what they were taught. This period has proved itself to be tremendously useful; students who use this time have shown better test scores and homework grades and are generally more likely to be able to aid their peers in understanding the curriculum. Students are well-connected to their internal compasses and fully understand how best to address their personal needs. Teachers can only assign projects based on averages, but students can modify their projects into what is necessary for them. If students have control of their own education, there is no doubt that they will be able to use the time to serve their needs in the best way possible.

Summer projects should be student-designed because students will be able to create a better balance between their free time and the time they spend working on their project. Studies show that the regular school year schedule of students being at school for eight hours per day and five days per week, paired with hours of homework every night, can result in various mental health issues, including anxiety and depression. Students need summer vacations in order to relieve themselves of the stress that the school year brings. Students entrusted with control over their summer projects will be able to allot a fitting amount of time to both their free time activities and their projects. Burnout can be greatly reduced by allowing students this freedom. Their personal health must be recognized as a priority and student-designed projects are the best way to do that.

Summer projects should be designed by students because students are more likely to enjoy the topics they pick, which will lead to better work. Many elementary schools teach using Problem-Based Learning projects during the school year, where young students are assigned a problem and are allowed to be as imaginative with their solutions as they like. The results of these projects are typically several hundred years ahead of humanity's current abilities and are borderline impossible to achieve, but the students are always fully engaged in the work and spend ample time cooperating with their peers, applying critical thinking skills, and much more. These students prove that self-directed projects will provide a great amount of opportunity to learn what is more important than a theoretical solution to global warming: how to work well with others and think through problems in order to solve them. Projects designed by students will maximize student engagement and ultimately result in better grades.

Teachers and students can agree that students will learn more if they are given projects to work on over the summer. The best way to organize these projects is to allow students to design them because each project will better address each student's needs, be balanced with free time, and students will remain engaged.