[kaitai]

Upvoted this. I have many students who face the challenge of mathematics with relish and they learn a lot by struggling. I have others who look at math, think "I'm not the kind of person who does/can do this" (for a variety of reasons), and fade out. Struggling with the material only happens if you are relaxed enough, in some sense, to engage with the material. A good part of my job with some populations was persuading them that they could fruitfully struggle with the material. The fear of mathematics is surprisingly pervasive in the US, as is the fear of struggle and the fear of not "performing".