It’s not just for boys
I can remember in 5th grade math I had a really inspiring math teacher. She went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure that everyone understood the reasoning behind the method. At the time I can remember thinking that there was never going to be a real life need as an adult for knowing about adding fractions or about converting decimals to fractions. And I think that many girls felt that same way at the time.
In my Algebra 2 class, I can remember that I was the only girl in the class. I really felt that the school system was letting the girls down and not living up to their responsibility to make sure that the girls got just as good an education as the boys did. It seemed to me that girls were expected to do poorly in math, and therefore very little effort was being made to help them do better. I think that if more of an effort had been made to show girls “real life” scenarios that they could relate to, for example relating the math to cooking, sewing, shopping for bargains, managing finances, then the girls would have been a little bit more interested in learning.
I’m sure that sounds sexist, but for the era that I was in school, it really would have helped the girls a lot.