" Generic_Name, are you not exited about summer vacation? I can not wait for my toes to be submerged in the crystal clear waters of Costa Rica!" I said with excitement while Generic_Name looked over at me with a penetrating stare, "what?" I asked " It's just that while you are at the beaches I have to be here, at home, doing my summer assignments". Generic_Name brought up a good point, many schools in the United States require their students, or at least expect them to practice their acquired knowledge from the year throughout their summer vacations. These assignments can vary in description from online activities to summer long projects,consequently, bringing up the questions of who gets to design such tasks? Is it the students that ultimately are the ones completing the assignment, or is it the teacher?. Without a doubt, teachers should be the ones that design the assignments because they have more experience and know their students strengths and weaknesses.

Students should not design summer assignments, but instead teachers should because they have more experience from their teaching, learning, and experimenting throughout the years. Ms. Generic_Name is a dedicated science teacher in Generic_School, but she is also very found of summer assignments and does her best to make sure that they exemplify her knowledge to her students; furthermore, she has made it her goal to make sure that her assignments are useful and has taken classes outside of her field to make sure that they are. Continuously, Ms. Generic_Name teaches multiple classes in biology and genetics and is knows the topics that are important for students to know, therefore, her philosophy is to enforce those topics during the summer by giving students summer assignments. Lastly, she has gotten time to experiment like many other teachers have, and she knows what will work and what will not, so for her 90's class a summer long project worked because they were not unmotivated, but for her most recent class an online activity would fit best with their interest. That is why I believe that summer assignments need to be teacher design because they know how to design material that is unique to every one of their classes needs. Some people may disagree with the argument that students know what they need better because they know themselves, but their reasoning is flawed because students do not have the knowledge that teachers have gained from their hundreds of students and the years spent in college to learn how to teach. I my self was one of those students that thought that I knew how to teach my self, but I could not be further from the truth. The summer of seventh grade we were allowed to choose how we wanted to review, and it really was student designed, we could do whatever we thought would work, but when next school year came around I was in geometry and I had even forgotten how to find X. It just goes to show that students can not teach themselves. Lastly, Generic_Name a friend that attends the Generic_School agrees that having teachers design their summer assignments is great, but some professors do not assign summer assignments so its up to them to learn the material, and according to her it is clear that the students that had an assign assignment retained more information than those that were left on their own, Generic_Name even compared those unfortunate students to chickens running around with their heads chopped of, only that they had textbooks.

Teachers should design summer assignments because they have gotten to know how their students learn by being with them for almost every day for nine months. I would be lying if I said that I do not have a favorite teacher because I do, and almost every student will agree that they all have that one teacher that they feel comfortable with. Those teachers have the privilege to learn a little more from their students, but they do most of their learning in the classroom from everyone of their students, so they are able to apply their knowledge to their methods of teaching and how they assign work. Teachers are so well versed on students that they even know when their classes are not ready to take a test, my chemistry teacher knows us so well that she has postponed tests before because she knows that we had a hard time with the unit and listens to our concerns and conflicts. As a result, teachers are the best to understand students struggles and methods of learning. Although some may disagree, with retaliation on how a teacher can know everyone of their students on the basis of how the teacher has time or has the patience to do so, but the truth is that teachers spend an enormous amount of time with their students not only in class, but also after and before school. Ms. Generic_Name is one such teacher that is here before and after school, and I had never realized the amount of people in the mornings and the many more afternoon. These students got up early and gave up their afternoons to get help from her, so I do not see how she would not learn from the extra interaction with her students. Furthermore, sometimes it is the students themselves that express what they want their teachers to know, for I know I do anytime that I feel that the way the teacher is teaching something is to bizarre or to confusing I make sure they know it, and not only me but many of my classmates do too. In tenth grade my calculus teacher, Mr. Generic_Name, even made us know that all of our feedback and input was of importance to him and that he used it to make our summer assignment.

As a result from teachers designing student's summer assignments students will be able to learn and retain past and new information better. Students should not have the desire to design their own summer assignments when teachers have the knowledge both about students and material to design them. In past years these assignments have been common and they should not stop being such in the future when their main role is to help students, and is seen in the present.