The magic goes away.
I understand your point - I was lucky enough to have some good teachers at that age that totally mesmerized me with science, though; shaped the future path of my career. Kids that age might be better serviced by a specialist science teacher who floats from classroom to classroom, showing up a few times a week to really show kids the "interesting" side of science with experiments, etc. (Such things cost $$, though, unfortunately...)
Consider yourself unbelievably fortunate. Good science teachers are a real rarity.
I got my love of science from home and science fiction.