I was an algebra teacher and tutor for years. It isn't the subject matter. It's the contextualization into the student's life. How is this relevant? I once taught a girl who was a soccer nut how to use algebra to budget for an imaginary soccer team. Soon it wasn't just basic algebra. We created a whole spreadsheet to calculate the entire thing. Change a number and it cascaded down to the final budget. She was jazzed.

It is vital not just to teach to the curriculum, but to teach to the student.

And that's where a lot of modern education falls apart.

It's not just algebra though. History. English (from literature to grammar). We're just failing to connect.