Educating?

Of late I have been wondering(Ya ya... I know some of you think how jobless can she be to have time to wonder... but, that's me) , what is EDUCATION really? Once the child hits the age of 3, we push them off to the most popular play school which is then followed by a even more popular school... I'm 23 now and I keep thinking what is it that I have learned really? What have we learnt in school, in college and what part of that do we really use in our daily lives? There is so much concentration these days on how many marks, what grades, which career path a child chooses but I wonder what is the ultimate purpose of it all? Fine, let's make a assumption, let's take a child, aces in all his classes, tops his tenth boards, heads for IIT's and then makes it to the cream (IIM-A is my guess), lands himself in a job with a 6/7 digit monthly salary, fine...all's well and good... but what next? I mean what is the purpose of it all ? A job with a huge salary? Financial security? Ensuring social status? Is that all that we want for our children? I mean, have we become so materialistic that for 22-25 years all we let the child think about is the so called "education" so that he can have a rich villa house,drive a merc and shop in malls in the weekends?
Don't get me wrong, it's all very nice, I mean ya having a job with shit loads of money is awesome, but really is having a 4/5 digit salary so bad? Is travelling in second class so horrible? Is it really that unimaginable to eat at home everyday? Does taking the bus/ or going by walk to office really hamper your social status?
If you answered 'No' to any of the above then read on... okay, you are a genius, very smart and very intelligent, but is that really a requirement to live a peaceful life? I'm not saying intelligence is bad, it's good, in fact very good, but I'm just trying to say that isn't it just another asset in life. I mean, it's good if you it, but it aint the end of the world if you haven't got it. Isn't the purpose of life to be happy, to love, to share and care for another... and live a life of satisfaction and contentment.
More than marks, more than grades, more than salaries I think we should be teaching/educating them(I'm not sure how many of us have this skill) on how to live life, how to actually go through life with the proper attitude, go through life in peace.

As always readers, please comment.

PS: I know I talked a lot about children in this one, it's not like I'm going to have kids anytime soon.. :P but its because now it's too late to change how we were bought up. The damage is done in our case, so here's hoping for a better tomorrow.