Is a student to be trusted with the same decisions as an experienced teacher, even when the decisions impact them? The decisions in question are summer assignments and if students should be the ones to decide the nature of their assignments or if the teacher should still be the one to make the assignments. I believe it would be best if these summer assignments were teacher-designed because teachers understand what students need to learn, teachers have more experience with structuring these assignments, and because students may purposefully make the assignment effortless to complete.

The first reason these summer assignments should be teacher-designed is that teachers know what information students need to maintain a grasp on. Once summer is done, students tend to forget knowledge that is essential for a smooth learning experience in the upcoming school year. This may slow a student down and affect their learning pace which, in turn, may impede the whole class because the teacher may have to spend time bringing the student to where they need to be in the lesson. This takes time from the curriculum and results in the class falling behind in the schedule that the teacher set in advance. This can be avoided if the students are given a teacher-designed assignment during summer so they already understand the learning materials when the new school year begins. Some may disagree with this and say students may research the learning materials that the assignment must include. Teachers, however, are more familiar with the material for they have been teaching it for many years, they may understand what should and shouldn't be included because they have prior experience with the issue. This understanding of the necessary materials that students tend to forget is a significant factor when considering if the assignment should be student-designed or teacher-designed.

Another reason it makes more sense to have teacher-designed assignments is that teachers have more experience structuring these assignments to make it easy for the student to understand. Many assignments given to students by teachers are assignments used in the past because it is shown that they are efficient in making the material understandable to the students. The reason these assignments are helpful is because the teacher structured them to be easy for the student to understand. Teachers have been teaching for a long time and they know what works and what does not work, and they are able to use their past experience from making assignments to determine the best way for the student to keep the learning materials fresh in their minds. Some may say that this is a good learning experience for students to learn how to structure assignments. This proposition may apply to other situations, but it does not apply to this one because students may have difficulty structuring the assignment, resulting in a confusing structure that may confuse the students completing the assignment over summer. Experience is a very important factor when considering if summer assignments should be student-designed or teacher-designed and teachers have a significant and teachers are significantly more experienced than students.

The final reason a teacher-designed summer assignment would be superior to a student-designed assignment is that students may decide to make the assignment easier for themselves. Though they are beneficial, many students disagree with summer assignments because they believe their summer should be an uninterrupted break from school and education. Since students feel this way, they may purposefully make the assignments much shorter and easier to avoid doing too much work. Students would rather take the easy way to avoid doing work over summer, even if this means they fall behind in the school year. Students would argue that they would make assignments easier and shorter because teacher-designed assignments are too difficult and lengthy. However this argument does not stand because the length and difficulty of the assignments are designed to aid the student in learning, the assignment is not meant to be completed promptly, it is meant to be completed over the course of their long break. This pattern of laziness in students is an important contribution to the idea that summer assignments should not be student-designed.

Though controversial among students, summer assignments have a very important role in students' summers, they ensure that students don't fall behind once they return to school in fall. It is important that these assignments remain teacher-designed as opposed to student designed because teachers understand what materials students must remember, they know how to structure assignments, and unlike students they make the assignments helpful instead of making it easy. It is important to remember how these assignments not only impact the individual student, but how they impact the entire class.