I wish I could upvote this more than once.

"We could be putting our time, attention and energy into truly furthering humanity and our own lives, but we are being directed, or channeled as a current, into specific directed avenues [...]." I have consistently argued (and you touch on this too) that this is the primary function of the education system. It doesn't better prepare students for life or teach critical thinking. Mostly, the message that they impart is one of submission to authority and conformity to the official narrative. They want to create ravenous consumers and obedient workers to serve the system. When I was a kid, few things would get us in as much trouble as expressing an opposing opinion and I am certain the same is true today.

You may not particularly agree with me on this but this issue is one of the reasons why I strongly support psychedelics. Whether one agrees with the idea of positive drug use or not, the ability of some of these substances to deprogram people by opening them to new modes of thinking is hard to ignore. There are other ways to break free from the imposed mindset of the system but each has its own strengths and weaknesses too.