I agree that difficulty is a good lesson; but it doesn't seem to be working for a lot of people in the US. Many students give up on math early. That might not be economically sustainable. I don't think math education is optimized to make the most of intuition and motivation, and I really don't think experimenting with improvements is harmful.
I concur. Hard life lessons should not be taught in the context of learning a new skill. Those can wait until after a degree of proficiency has been attained lest we undermine their efforts completely.
