This quote made me pause and think about how my public education began. Now that I am a college student, I forget how I learned to read and write. One of the first things I remember is tracing my name over and over again. I didn't understand it completely, and to now see that this teaching strategy didn't put me ahead in my education. I wonder what I could have been accomplishing instead...

The addition of this quote highlights how stigma of 'girls being worse than boys at math' is internalized within young girls. It is not directly what people say on how well girls can achieve, but rather the cumulation of girl-math stigmas that impact self image. The biggest barrier for achievement is anticipating failure: anxiety.