Everyone has heard that over the summer you lose some of the knowledge your learned over the school year. To combat this teachers are assigning summer projects to keep their students engaged in learning wile there on summer break. Some believe these projects should be designed by the students, but I believe these projects should be designed by the teachers because they know the curriculum, will challenge the students, and provide clear instruction on how the project is to be done.

First off, the teachers know what the students will need to know for the next school year. As a student I pick the classes I want to do the following year, but over the summer I usually don't prepare for those courses. Although, over the past two I have had teacher assign summer projects to help ease me into the courses I will be taking. Those summer projects may have seemed like a nuisance at the time, but when I went back to school I felt very prepared for the new courses I would be taking.

We all know that nobody wants to do summer projects, so if the students designed the projects they would all be super easy and nobody would learn anything. This is why the teachers should design the projects because they will challenge the students. The summer of my sophomore year, in my biology class, we had the choice of designing our own project of letting the teacher design one for us. Most chose to design their own, but I chose to let the teacher design one for me. As the school year ended and summer began most of my classmates who chose to design their own project were trying to quickly finish their projects so their summer wouldn't be affected. This defeats the purpose of summer projects because they are supposed to challenge your brain throughout the summer. While my project on the other hand, was designed to last the whole summer by making me do small assignment throughout the summer.

Last but not least, the teachers will provide clear instruction on how to complete the project. Lets use the example I talked about above again. Since my teacher designed my project I knew everything she wanted and knew exactly how to do it. Furthermore, I also knew how to pace myself so the project would last the entire summer and not take up too much of my time. On the other hand, the students who decided to design their own project had to plan out and make every instruction, which isn't impossible, but it's hard. And sure enough many of those students had trouble finishing their projects because there where some flaws in their instructions.

Summer projects aren't always fun, but are needed if you want to retain the knowledge you learned over the school year. And as explained above, if they're designed by the teacher they can be quite enjoyable because they provide clear instruction, challenge you, and also know what you will need to know for the next school year. In the end, summer projects provide a valuable learning experience, especially if they're designed by the teacher.