Our senses were developed to let a heterotrophic organism survive.
Galilei quote:
"The universe cannot be read until we have learned the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. Without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth."
You want to let kids choose between acting out like a chimp or study mathematics?
BTW: reading is not adding letters in words, words in sentences, application of grammatics...
It's recognition of patterns which just happens to be the essence of mathematics.
Mathematics is easy peasy if you learn your definitions - as much a vocabulary thing as anything else.
But the problem is you can't see that if you never studied it - or better, understood it's essence!!!
So here I see a big problem in education: always the stress on analysis.
But analysis is a chicken without a head if it's not followed by synthesis, a creative exercise to put things back in perspective.