Thank you for your comment.

Most math teachers in my opinion don't try to make things "fun" nor interesting. A large handful of them make math more scary than it should be.

I do agree that it it still up to the student whether or not they want to continue math. Math teachers who provide motivating examples with realistic (enough) math applications can influence the student's decision with sticking with math.

I do agree with you about grade school teachers. Here in the province of Ontario (Toronto area), the grade school teachers were somewhat average with teaching math. My high school math teachers for the most part were pretty good (lucky sample size I guess). They were competent, knowledgeable but I wish they talked more about math careers and such.

One good application of math for high school students is understanding the basics of finance, interest rates, how compound interest works with exponential functions. Personal finance is one of those undertaught subjects in a lot of places.