Imagine you just finished your sophomore year of high school. Summer has finally arrived! The whole Summer is yours for you to do anything and everything you want to do... except for your Summer assignment. In one class, your teacher has assigned you to run a specific research project that encompasses all the main ideas of the subject. In another class, the teacher has given you the assignment of designing and completing your own project. You sit down and think. Which one of these projects will teach me the subject better? Summer project assignments should be designed by the teacher of the course's project since it would avoid students designing projects that are not challenging enough, teachers know the subject better, and they are trained to give the right assignments for effective teaching.

First and foremost, high school students are known to avoid the heavier workload if given the choice of a lighter one, even if the heavier workload will benefit them in the long run. For example, I've had the experience of having a history class assign more work one year, and the next year's history class assign less. In the class with more projects and work given, I learned the material more thoroughly and can still apply the material I learned to other situations. On the other hand, I can't remember much of the material from the class that gave me less work and projects. Though I enjoyed the lighter class, I learned that more work is equivalent to a better understanding of the subject. This, therefore, means that students, with their preference for less work, would not benefit from designing their own project since they'd simply design a light and extremely easy project.

Another reason why teachers should design Summer projects is that they know the subject they teach better than the students they are assigning the project to. Teachers, apart from having learned and gone through the same classes as the students they teach, have also gone to college and studied the subject in a lot more depth for years. They simply know more than the student and know what projects helped them, as students, learn the material. A chemistry teacher, for example, is going to know what project to give to students in order for the student to learn chemistry since the students haven't even taken the class yet. Students do not know what projects will teach them effectively.

Additionally, teachers have gone through years of schooling and college to get to the position they are in, as well as probably having years of teaching experience. They have been trained to teach students effectively and know what methods of teaching work best. This also means that teachers know which projects and what approach to projects are best for students. In my science class one year I had the option of designing and running my own experiment. I chose the easiest option and ended up doing badly since there were no instructions or guidelines for the experiment. I did learn from my mistakes and having to teach myself the subjects related to the experiment, but the experiment was mostly a fiasco. I learned the subjects a lot better when my teacher gave us a project that had clear intentions and guidelines that guided us to the main lesson we were being taught rather than just a project of doing whatever thrown at us. Teacher usually knows best.

After a few moments of thinking, you come to the conclusion that teacher-designed projects teach you better and more effectively. Yes, you as a student do know how you yourself learn better than a teacher knows how you specifically learn. Yes, students can also learn from the process and mistakes of designing a project, but the truth is that the likelihood of at least the majority of students putting the effort into their project to put these ideas into account is very low. Teachers know how to teach and what projects to give to students to effectively teach. Now, you sit down and start your projects.