‘School Math’ disconnects us from ‘Real Math’

Why is it that kids go from seeing math every where in their real life to being disconnected from math and even hating it?  Why is it that early learners are so inquisitive and mathematics comes naturally to them but yet by the time they are in 1st grade (maybe even earlier) they begin to think that math is hard, it is not fun, and they feel like they are bad at it?  My belief is that kids naturally see math in their real life, yet when they get to ‘school math’ we move to the abstract mathematics too fast for children.  My 6-year-old son was doing a 4-page worksheet packet (UGH!!!) for his 1st grade math class on place value (54= ___tens and ____ones), and he wasn’t getting what it meant.  But the moment I put it into his favorite context (money) to relate it to real life, and asked him, “If you had $54, how many ten dollar bills would you have?  And how many one dollar bills?” he was able to answer that instantaneously.  The formalization of mathematics for the sake of schooling (and dare I say it…testing) has made our society disconnected from real mathematics so much so that too many people have learned to hate math and believe that it is acceptable to hate math.  But what is all to common in ‘school math’ is NOT real math.