However, making contrived examples, even if illustrative, does make students think math is pointless and detestable. Many high school students, in my experience

However, making contrived examples, even if illustrative, does make students think math is pointless and detestable. Many high school students, in my experience, really do develop a belief that they dislike math because they are led to believe that math is only good for things as boring, useless, and contrived as solving a linear system to figure out how many cars and vans to bring. In this case there are even many other simpler and faster solutions compared to the proposed one. The obvious solution if the problem actually occurred in reality, barring other unmentioned limitations, is to take five vans. In many math courses, if a student given that problem during the lesson on linear systems were to suggest taking five vans, the teacher would mark the answer wrong. Seeking the simplest solution involving the fewest and simplest steps(and thus fewest opportunities to make a mistake) is a virtue in mathematics. Is not a shorter and simpler proof of the same theorem usually the most well-respected amongst mathematicians? Likewise should our mathematics education teach us to seek the shortest and simplest route to a correct solution.