An education is important... but it should be on life skills. Let me give you a couple of ideas or example that come to mind.
example 1 - content being learnt:
In primary school we used to have interesting things called Multiplication Tables - remember that book? so we had to cram those things. We had another called Log Tables... Now come to the world we live in... I will introduce you to a person who uses a similar skill - the supermarket cashier. The process goes something like this...
Beep... Beep...Beep... Then you look at a screen that says 2400. You go to your pocket and you extract 3 1k notes and give to her... she keys in 3000 and the gadget tells her 600. it then opens the cash drawer and she picks 2 - 300 shilling notes and gives them to you. She does this all day! What skills are important to her? If you look back... in the 18th century the students were taught 3 classes
I found this material here
1) English - the curriculum was


maths was


Then they had this thing called 'Latin' and it's curriculum was


An educated person could become one of few things.. a lawyer, an accountant or a merchant. All these skills were important!

example 2 - structure of learning:
the workplace in 1910 was something like this




in this setup we needed everyone to do as they were told... no room for creativity! kinda like a KFC kitchen... You don't want a creative KFC cook!

The class today looks like this


and the most constructive part of work looks like this

or


whenever adults do what is seen in our classrooms it is usually something like this
<- have you ever seen anything interesting come out of this type of setup? I quite frankly find that i need lots of coffee to make me survive one of these sessions.

I put it to you that we are teaching our kids the wrong things in the wrong way! if you notice - I am sure your kids hustle you over devices - right? your phone... your tablet. I am sure if you are like any parent you tried to give them those chinese fake phones and they were dismissed and they want your phone. The moment I step at home and after the rituals of hugging and stuff - my kids always want my phone! (Windows Phone OS has a child area - coz they know you are fighting a losing a battle). If you are generous and you give them a phone to play with you will notice that they will figure things out for themselves - right? and what happens in the morning? you yank the device from their hands and put them in a bus to go to school and they hate school (except breaktime coz they interact and get creative during that period). The cycle repeats itself. Have you noticed that kids hate School and Church? why? they have to do unnatural things then... stay stationary and quiet for long periods of time.

Good piece @ma-veg

A child can be enthused to learn anything @masukuma. Most of what you're saying fits into the 'constructivist' approach to learning - and I'm a fan of this method.

But reality is a social construct, and power may not be so evenly distributed, or it's benefits universal. The experience you've shared above may as well be a tether, or a prison.

I like your projections. I'm wondering for example, what's education really? Can a time come when education will no longer be necessary? Certainly if that would be the case, then there'd be neither birth nor death among other interesting conditions. Like say, advanced Cyborg systems. But I have a feeling all this is possible.