As far as I can tell, this is the problem with science eduction. People who become teachers or professors do so because they just love the subject. But, in general, whether you're talking about math or literature or foreign language, the people you encounter aren't going to love the subject, so saying you ought to do something out of love (or fun) isn't a selling point at all. And someone who loves something tends to make it more boring for those who don't, I think; for example, I took a class in complex analysis, which I'm not interested in and the instructor spent nearly all his time on proofs that he found excited which made it even less interesting to me.

I've tutored 100s of people in math and I think that I can say that the argument that math teaches you how to think better isn't practical, that is, people do not practice it. Of course math is very tight logical thinking and you can apply that way of doing things elsewhere in your life. But, to students, math, e.g algebra, is in the box of stuff they don't like and won't use, and they're probably right and they just throw it away when they're done; they don't use it and they don't learn how to think better.

I know for me, I had a lot of trouble with math until I found something that I liked that used it. It wasn't until there was a definite, concrete use for it that I took it up. Math seems kind of like shopping for hammers. If I need to build a house, then I'll go get a hammer, but if I don't, I'm not going to stand mesmerized on the hammer aisle.