Imagine it is the last day of school and the dismissal bell rings. You run out of your classroom knowing you will you will not have to worry about a teacher's assignment for the next three months. The only assignment you have is a project that is in your complete control. Some would say a student-designed summer project will not benefit the projects educational purpose because students would pick the easiest projects but that is not the case. Students should should design there own summer projects because they can be creative and not feel the burden of a forced teacher-designed project.

If the summer project is student-designed than this will allow creativity and make the project more fun. Students can even insert their summer activities into the project. Wouldn't it be better to have a project that feels like a summer activity? Having been in the school system for about 11 years, students know that a student-designed project allows them to be more creative and to think about ways to make the project fun. Students like the idea of choosing how they work on assignments and having a project over the summer is already annoying enough. Choosing how you do the project over vacation, however, encourages creativity and motivation to actually do the project.

As teenagers, being told to wash the dishes or do the laundry makes us less motivated to do them because we do not always like being told what to do. But when we do them voluntarily, we feel encouraged to do more than if asked. Same goes with school projects. Knowing you are forced to work on a project that has all the requirements laid out can feel like a burden. The projects aspects may not be your strong suit but, if you have the project in your control than you feel more motivated to work on it. You can inset your strong ideas that you know you can work best on.

Some would say a teacher-designed summer project allows for better learning because teachers know more, but a student-designed summer project will let students not only learn more but be more creative and motivated to work. Having a required assignment over the summer is annoying enough so, letting students design their projects lifts some weight off their shoulders. Students should not have to feel the burden of a teacher-designed project over the break but rather the creativity they have on how they choose to learn. Now imagine it is the middle of summer and you know your required summer project is going to be designed by you. There is no worries, just a mind full of creative ideas.