After the school year ends, students return to their homes feeling a great sense of relief that the school year is over, and that they're about to get a much needed break. However, just because school has stopped doesn't mean that learning should. Three entire months off is long time, and many students actually forget most of what they learned over the past year and need to be refreshed when they return to school. It would save everyone a lot of time if students came back to school with the last year's information still fresh in their minds. The simple solution to this problem is summer assignments. However, it is critically important that these summer assignments are student-designed, meaning that most of what is done for the assignment is thought of by the student rather than simply following the guidelines of their teacher. It is necessary that summer work be student-designed because it encourages and teaches self motivated learning, will be something the student is more passionate about, and will be less stress on teachers.

The first benefit of summer work being controlled by students is that it encourages and teaches self-motivated learning. Self-motivated learning is when the student has a desire to learn and therefore works hard to learn information without having to be pushed by their teachers. The truth is that while teachers can relay all the necessary information to students, if the students don't want anything to do with it they will learn far less effectively than students who do want to learn. By asking students to create their own summer assignment, it forces them into a new learning environment in which they have to take charge of their learning. Upon being put into this position, students will have to adapt to learn how to teach themselves information. This is a very valuble life skill that will be very helpful to them later in their lives, as self-education is needed for many things that are not taught in school as well as in the workplace. Motivating themselves is an important skill that can be taught through student-designed summer work.

On a similar note, giving students the ability to choose between what they have to do for their summer projects enables them to make the topic or submission format something that they are more passionate about than what they might otherwise be taught in school. Typically, in a learning context, more passion or excitement transfers to more success at whatever it is the students are trying to learn. Being more passionate about something causes people to interact with it much more, and interaction is key to the learning of many students. In addition, students being excited to do something furthers the self-motivation mentioned above. If there is something that a student wants to do, they will do it without needing a teacher to tell them to. Overall, the passion that comes from student-designed summer work makes it a much more fun and more effective experience for students.

To make things even better, student -designed summer work won't only be helping the students, it will be helping the teachers. Teachers work very hard to plan, produce, and grade all of the students' schoolwork for the entire school year. They deserve to have a break! By letting students take charge of their summer work, it takes an extra burden off the shoulders of the people who dedicated their lives to educating America's youth for a meager government salary. With the extra time they have without having to plan and construct a summer assignment, teachers can do many things, such as get the jump on later assignments that they will have to make, enjoy some time with their friends and family, or just get some much needed sleep. This extra time for teachers is another fantastic reason why summer assignments should be student-designed.

There is no doubt that summer assignments are a necessary part of learning, in order to continue to teach information and to help students remember information that they would otherwise forget. But these assignments should not be simple rubrics and reading notes, they should be something different. Something that is going to have a significant impact on everyone in the education system. Something that will build a strong new generation without overworking the old ones. Those who are students understand the value of enjoying and wanting to learn about a subject, those who are educators know how important it is to be able to motivate yourself to work, and those who are school teachers know that a little extra time and a little less stress goes a very long way. That is why summer assignments should be student designed rather than teacher-designed.