I am sure the kids would love that -- lotus eating all day while contemplating the Nature of Things, rather than that dry foundation stuff.
And the rest of the world will, of course, completely destroy what small lead in science and technology we have been able to hang onto despite the anti-science Luddites.
That's why I'm very sensitive to stories about the development and design of modern math as taught to children in schools.
People didn't just go out and pick it up off the ground, or check fossils. No, nothing that simple. At least you'd have a starting point for your conjectures if you had a bone, or a piece of rock. With math, it's always been a creation of the mind, that is an INTELLIGENT DESIGN.
Math also has many different paths to any solution ~ and though all are called, few are chosen. Some are not chosen because they are too difficult for ordinary, average people to understand or use readily. However, even the rejected paths can achieve the same result as those chosen.
I think math majors develop a mind-set far different than the popular idea that they'd all be "rigid" ~ far from it ~ they are loathe to reject any path irrespective of its degree of improbability.
For those "concerned", I changed over to History just about the time I'd be moving into "advanced topology" ~ so I didn't take that course. Still, I spent a couple of semesters discussing the topic with guys who were taking it ~ and did that at least 1 or 2 hours an evening, depending, of course, on whether or not we were playing hearts or chess.
Yeah, they're both zero sum games, but there's psychology involved, and they teach discipline.