Describing school as "sitting passively" is a huge generalization. If you have a half-decent school system (which you might not, I was lucky and had a great one) it should be very interactive.

School's benefit, I think, is that it exposes you to a ton of topics that aren't your primary interests (or your parents' primary interests). How many people have taken a class because it had a cool name or their friend was taking it or they needed the credit and it turned out they loved the subject?