Summer projects are immensely helpful in order to keep your mind active and intelligent when your're not in school, constantly stimulated by academic subjects. However, the summer projects should be student-designed rather than teacher designed. Students making the projects know what will help their peers learn throughout the summer, they know what they have truly learned rather than what teachers assumed they have been taught by other teachers, and they have the opportunity to showcase their creativity and passions through the project they complete. In order to be most successful, students should have authority to be creative and responsible for their summer projects.

Summer projects purpose is to continue the growth of your mind when you are out of the classroom for about 90 days. A lot can happen to adolescents over the summer, a lot of things that anyone who is not in the same phase of life can truly understand. Many teenagers find sanity with their peers and friends in this time frame of growing up. As seen and extensively studied by Erik Erikson, Erikson came to the consensus that when you are going through the school-age stage of life you begin to pull away from your parents and adults to find yourself and find your independence. In result, you grow more drawn to your friends and peers, due to them understanding the phase of development you are going through. The connection students have with each other is something that can not be matched by teachers. No matter the background or clique a student is in they all have one major characteristic in common that connects them, they are all students. Teachers have not been in school in years and they don't connect with the same things as this generation does. Teachers did not have the same technology, pop culture, or even the same societal standards as today students have. Student-designed projects will create a project they know is going to reach their student peers in a way that connects to them and the modern day times because they are experiencing it, along with them.

Throughout my school years, I find myself stressed and concerned every year when I receive a new teacher, after a long and carefree summer. The teachers have so much faith in their coworkers and the retention of the knowledge that according to them "we should have learned in years past." They begin to assign "easy" and "refresher" work that they assume we have been taught. The lack of communication between teachers is a hard burden on students due to their past teachers exclaiming that "you do not need to worry about that, your teacher next year will teach you," and your present teachers thinking that you had already learned it in your past courses. As the student, you are left with the sense of delusion and dissatisfaction on why you lack this important skill and learning target. You struggle to understand basic fundamentals of learning and when you are assigned a project you begin to sweat the little gaps in your learning. Every student knows this feeling of remorse of being assigned a project on material you just havent been taught yet. Students who design the projects know what they and their peers have been taught and what they all lack because they have all endured the same classes and teachers. Students designing the projects can develop a project that will set them straight for the new academic year and go into school after the summer feeling confident and legitimately feel the work from teachers is a "refresher" not a degrading of their intelligence.

The creativity of generation Z is outstanding and unique to modern day society. The opportunity for students to create the projects would be extraordinary and expressive of our generation. The use of creativity is very limited in school. You are to be complacent with the standards of your school through the strict rules and regulations they place. Many of the rules you are given are not only rigid but not needed. Teachers set boundaries on students and rarely let them experience and express their own style and flair. When students are allowed to indulge in their personal ambiance their limits are endless. This is embodied through art and the publishing of students in modern day. More books written by teenagers are selling on the shelves today, than ever before. When students get the opportunity to express themselves and their creativity they begin to showcase their natural talent that you cannot see when it is hidden behind the standards of learning and learning targets set by teachers and the school board. The teachers teach every student the same in order to maintain a consistency and basis of learning. By doing this they lose the chance to see the passions and talents of the individual students. Consistent learning is needed but teachers lack the understanding that every student is different and have their own learning process and strengths. Modern day students recognize the differences throughout their peers and themselves. They notice that the differences unite them and it is ordinary to be different. Students who create the projects will implement the material to be expressive of their peers because they have the same mindset that comes with being in generation of identity and self-expression. Teachers do not see this aspect of learning they see learning targets and standards.

Student-designed projects would implement effective, continual learning over the summer break due to the students connection with their peers, knowledge of common learning gaps, and the generational need of creativity and self-expression. The purpose is to continue learning while not being in a classroom, but how can we continue to grow our knowledge if the students can not establish a connection with project due to being out-of-touch with modern day and the mentality of today' students. Therefore, in order to achieve maximum learning, students should be tasked with the project design.