Students need a break from school. Continuing through twelve years of standardized education without the occasional recess would be detrimental to the mental health of all involved parties (including the teachers). That being said, breaks from school should not be periods where students are completely free of the learning they undergo during the school year. To ensure this, students are often given graded projects to complete over their breaks. However, the way in which these projects should be administered is a point of contention. Some believe these projects should be created by teachers, others believe the students themselves should be making their own assignments. Because it is the most effective way to prepare for the upcoming course, and it is the best way to ensure all projects can be graded fairly and objectively, teachers should be the ones designing the projects students take over their breaks.

I've seen a joke circiling around the internet around back-to-school time for a couple of years now. It describes how as one walks into their math class on the first day of school, the teacher will frantacially start off the class by exclaiming "alright everybody we're already behind schedule". Although this is meant to be comedic, it certainly bears parallels to reality. Often teachers simply do not have enough class time to get through all the material by the end of the year. This causes the class to be rushed, and does not allow for the teacher to allocate more time to areas where students are struggling. Having teachers design projects to be completed before students arrive on the first day of class is a way to mitigate this problem. Teachers, who know the curriculum well and truly understand what topics might need more focus, can design a project that introduces the students to material they actually need to know. This relieves the stress and pressure put on students and teachers alike, as the students enter the classrooms for the first time already familiar with the material. Accomplishing this with a student-designed project would not be as successful, as anyone unfamiliar with course-material is not going to be able to create a project that prepares someone for that very course-material. Teachers are the only ones that can effectively design a project that prepares students for their upcoming course.

Personal bias has no place in education. Teachers try to avoid this from coming into play by issuing objective markers of student performance: grades. However, grades only work if they are truly objective. Therefore, educators must use a standarized rubric to assess all of their students. This is practically impossible to do if students can design their own project. If a student has the freedom to take as many liberties as he or she desires with a graded assignment, it is almost impossible for any teacher to then compare every students' projects to one another, or even to some basic model. My eighth grade science teacher ran into this very problem. My class was given an assignment with very little direction and practically no rubric. This made it very difficult for us to understand what we were supposed to get out of the assignment. Additionally, many of us thought we were graded unfairly for the project. I realize now that these conclusions were inevitable because this was a student-designed project. The teacher was unable to fairly assess our work because the project lacked structure. It is unfair for both students and teachers alike to have students design their own projects, as it is practically impossible to grade them objectively and fairly.

Long summer breaks can often prove to be detrimental to a student's education. Teachers often try to avoid this outcome by assigning projects over this period of rest. However, this raises the question of who should be the ones designing these projects: teachers or students? Because it is the most effective way to prepare for the upcoming course, and it is the best way to ensure all projects can be graded fairly and objectively, teachers should be the ones designing the projects students take over their breaks.