This is a really good point I think! Up until the last few months, I've avoided doing any math with my brain that I'm not required to do (so, no brain math since college). Just recently I've been picking up some books about the history and philosophy of math like Fermat's Enigma and Everything and More (I'm a sucker for DFW, so this was a no-brainer when math was back on my radar).

Now every evening I find myself saying out loud, "why the hell didn't the math teachers explain it like this." For example, we all learn about the Pythagorean Theorem, but why didn't we learn about the Pythagorean Brotherhood[1] a little bit? And feel just a little bit of the excitement that Pythaogoras did when he found an exposed wire of the universe and figured out how to work it.

Fun fact: Pythagoras had to pay his first pupil to listen to him. No one gave a shit, probably not too different than how kids don't give a shit today. But the kids we're teaching don't even get paid, they're told their true reward is something intangible or some vague math-fu. All this while they have a black hole for their mind in their pocket where at least the fall is comfy.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoreanism