I... need to remember this. My daughter at not even 11 years old, is already being told math isn't fun and they're discounting her very high ability in it, which is making her discount herself. (to be fair, it's classmates with attitudes, NOT 3rd and 4th grade teachers in her school.) I have to keep reminding her that she is good in math, and since she is in cyber school, she can see the different assignments being given to her classmates when it's post to forum. She FOUGHT her way into the multiplication tables, because she couldn't see why to memorize them or the tricks. After a month of crazy hard work, she suddenly had them AND was doing 3 digit multiplication. I'm autistic, I can't always see a way around obstacles she seems to create for herself, so I have to get her dad to explain at times instead of me. She thinks like him! :-)

She wants to be a chemist. She wants particularly to be able to create explosions in chemistry, and discussing why the calculations are good health and safety first, is about all getting her through the annoyance of "Girls don't like math." ARGH!!!!