There are some schools that require students to continue their learning and growth through summer projects. Some teachers and students alike agree that this would be beneficial to the minds of the kids who go away for the summer and don't retain the knowledge that they've gained. Though there is some argument on who should be the ones to design them, the teachers or the students? The students should definitely have the liberty to choose and design the structure of these summer-long projects to ensure that they enjoy what they're doing while they learn. It's been proven that, when you enjoy the task at hand, you will typically receive more pride of the work you've done and more knowledge.

When school lets out for the summer each year, the kids aren't worried about saving their textbooks or notes they've taken over the course of the semester. From the end of May, right up til the beginning of August, the majority of students are totally oblivious to the notion of learning. They just want to kick back and do practically nothing for those few months. As wonderful and naive as that sounds, our minds do require that we keep a little stimulation on them so they stay sharp. So rather than assigning month's worth of home-work, schools have come up with a way to keep our brains fresh, without putting so much stress on them that it causes anxiety. Projects are a more creative way to keep your knowledge in check. This way, students could spread out certain aspects of the project during the duration of summer.

Not surprisingly though, this is causing problems between students and their teachers. They cannot decide who should design the projects. It's the students who are required to complete the projects, therefore they should be the ones to choose the structure of them. While teachers are worried about the material and criteria that the students have to cover, they don't really know the interests and ideas of all the kids. If you force a subject on a student that they genuinely hate for a summer long deal, they're just going to do a halfhearted job on it. For an everyday example, when ever my Trig teacher would assign a project in class, I somewhat cared about getting it done in the beginning, but after realizing that I really don't have any level of interest in trigonometry, I just kind of stopped caring. It's very well known that when someone has an interest in a subject they will plunge all of their effort into it.

If the teachers allow the students to choose their own path for the project, while still somewhat pertaining to the main subject, they would see more cooperation from the students. As a student, I know the agony of having to go through with an assignment or project that I hated, but that was during school, during summer, you should have some leniency. Students will typically make it more fun and add their personality when they have the opportunity to make a project their own. When they are held to so many guidelines, the projects often times look the same.

Looking at this from another angle, there are those who say it would be more beneficial to make it the teachers' task to design them. Well guess what, teachers are human and don't always know what's best for their students to learn. Each person learns differently in both ways and paces. When teachers design assignments, it's, this is what your assignment is and that's that. When students do it, it becomes more unique and beneficial for each one. Also, that way students can't just copy each other's work.

So all in all, there is no argument that schools should require summer long projects. While teachers know what is expected of the students, they don't always really know how each child learns best. So if they were to implement the freedom for the kids to choose what they want, they would see much better results in the minds of their students.