We don't believe students are lazy. It is the natural instinct of a child to learn, and this instinct carries over into adulthood. Although sometimes people become rigid as they age, it is not necessarily so. It is the instinct of a human being to take in and process his environment, to seek new influences to grow and expand. Imagine a plant in a window sill growing towards the light. This is how people are: growing toward that which nourishes them. The ideal situation is to find many points of inspiration so that one becomes and remains well balanced.
The punishment / reward model, although pervasive in our culture, often doesn't really work to anyone's true benefit. What do you do with a lazy child? Beat her? Scream at him? Or to lazy employees? Fire or yell at them? We choose to believe instead that students become overwhelmed, discouraged, or simply lack the currently required skills.
Our solution is to empower kids with skills, confidence, and maturity, as well as grace, reason, and inspiration. We can help with hard subjects and even the hated subjects. We can help repair the damaged confidence of children who have given up, helping to repair the relationships that gave up on them. We can help students gain perspective on damaged teacher relations and instill confidence (and even enthusiasm) for all kinds of subjects. We help students master skills to enable them to begin to enjoy the studying, and along the way we'll provide learning strategies and assessments.
Is it really a surprise that students don't like subjects they are bad at? Or which they've been told they're bad at? Is this really any different from most people in general? It is very much human nature, especially in a competitive society, to shy away from your weaker areas. It is our experience that doing so creates a large gap in abilities between "good subjects" and "bad subjects" that were in fact minor to begin with. This is not to suggest that everyone must be good at everything – we all have strong areas. But when basic math or reading skills become an obstacle to other achievement – or worse an emotional burden eroding at the student's self confidence – we can help.
It has been our experience that the "worst test-takers," "slowest readers," and "just not good at x" can get better with the right kind and amount of encouragement and skill development – often exceeding their own – and even our – expectations.