As you read the introduction, there were several questions to ponder  that Jo Boaler discussed. Below is a quote from the preference.   

Do you have similar experience or different experience from your own students.

Jo Boaler interviewed students from both traditional and those who learned through a problem-solving approach, about their use of math in their part-time after-school jobs.  The students from the traditional approach all said that they used and needed math out of school but that they would never, ever make use of the mathematics they were learning in their school classrooms.   The students regarded the school math classroom as a separate world with clear boundaries that separated it from their lives.  The students who had learned through a problem-solving approach did not regard the mathematics of school and the world as different and talked with ease about their use of the school-learned math in their jobs and lives.  (page 9-10)