Do you have kids? Telling them their finances are a reason for learning maths is bullshit, because not every person that age has to worry about their finances.
And even if you choose that as a story you will have a hard time explaining to them why they need to learn trigonometry or something like the aforementioned integral.
As an educator I have found most people don't really need a hard rational incentive to learn a thing. All they need is a story that convinces them to learn that. E.g. when I helped unruly teens with their homework and they had an abstract geometric problem to solve, it costed me literally nothing to come up with some story of how they comanding the knights in a castle and to prevent their enemey from entering they have to figure out how much material they need to chop in the woods.
The same boring problem suddenly was tied to a heroic story of them saving the day and oh wonder, they were more interested in solving the issue.
I've seen 'em right up through high school saying that there was no purpose to learning math, and that math wasn't "relevant". And then they go into the workforce and mismanage their finances into perpetual poverty.
I also see them choose college majors apparently on the basis of avoiding all contact with math, and wind with degrees that employers aren't interest in.
Your hero story worked, good on ya! I would have related the true story of hiring a contractor to build an elliptical patio. He charged by the square foot. He laid it out, and had the bricks delivered. Something seemed off. I measured the L+W+H of the brick pallet, and the volume of one brick, and computed the area the bricks would cover. Then, measured the L+W of the patio layout, and used the area for an ellipse formula. The bricks was the right number for the area, but the area was only 2/3 of the area he quoted me and charged me for. I nicely inquired about the discrepancy, and he hemmed a bit and said he'd made a mistake, and adjusted the bill accordingly.
Of course, we both knew he tried to cheat me, quite egregiously. I figure he did this regularly and got away with it with his math challenged customers.
I recall a documentary about a famous entrepreneur who made a lot of money in high school by gambling with other teens who did not comprehend the odds.
Sure, finance doesn't interest a 6 year old. But I've never heard of a teen who didn't want to have money in their pocket, and who looked forward to being taken advantage of. Even the unruly ones.
I don't agree that finances are bullshit reasons for learning math.
P.S. In high school, I joined a poker game with some peers who I knew had engaged in fencing stolen goods. They cleaned me out. I knew enough about poker odds to realize they were card cheats, but I didn't see how they were doing the cheat. It was a cheap lesson for me :-/ The most effective scams are the ones where the mark doesn't realize he was cheated, and will come back for more. I didn't return to poker.
I just talked about this with a friend of mine who related a story about a teacher friend of his in a low-income school. Lots of gang violence, standard rough neighborhood. A kid asked the usual "why do I need to learn algebra?" question. The teacher replied "If you want to stay poor, you don't have to." The kid got the message.
I had these "though talking" teachers, and to be honest they didn't impress anybody. The best teachers I ever met all had a burning enthusiasm for their subject and managed to spark interest in their students as well. So much so that nobody ever had to ask them why a thing was needed. It was obvious that it was either needed or the lesson was so interesting that nobody gave a damn whether there was any use to it. I mean people watch documentaries about aliens and pyramids all day — teenagers don't need things to be useful to be motivated, but they need to be motivated to learn things that turn out to be useful.
There are studies on whether negative or positive drivers are more effective at getting people to learn. I won't spoil the findings, but you can probably guess by my line of reasoning already.
According to the teacher, he did. Even if he didn't change his behavior, he now knew there was indeed a reason.
I started my first small business when I was 8, and was able to do the accounting for it (not that there was much to it). I never thought about the connection between math and business at the time, because it just seemed natural and obvious. I did several businesses, earning enough that I could buy a car by the time I was 16.
I bet you knew kids during school who had small enterprises on the side.
And even if you choose that as a story you will have a hard time explaining to them why they need to learn trigonometry or something like the aforementioned integral.
As an educator I have found most people don't really need a hard rational incentive to learn a thing. All they need is a story that convinces them to learn that. E.g. when I helped unruly teens with their homework and they had an abstract geometric problem to solve, it costed me literally nothing to come up with some story of how they comanding the knights in a castle and to prevent their enemey from entering they have to figure out how much material they need to chop in the woods.
The same boring problem suddenly was tied to a heroic story of them saving the day and oh wonder, they were more interested in solving the issue.