Intuitively though at 40ish, most of the things I "learned" in school but never used have all fallen out of my head. The knowledge I have is things that I was actually excited to learn: computers, enough math to make computers do what I wanted, writing so I could socialize with other nerds better, history because I like history. Basically, you couldn't stop me from learning those things, but the things I was forced to learn ended up being somewhat of a waste of time for both me and the instructor, I think. I mean, you want to challenge kids a bit because they might resist something at first and then eventually realize they like it quite a bit (math for instance), but there's also a point where the tests mostly just become kayfabe. We say these people are doing "better" because they get a higher test score, but then they get into the real world where there is no test score, and that entire academic framework is kind of useless and maybe even harmful.

"Play based learning" is a huge misnomer, which is unfortunately common in unscientific academic fields like education. Any successful, intrinsically-motived learning is biologically categorized as "play" behavior; and knowledge-based, teacher-centered, direct instruction approaches (i.e. traditional schooling) are the most effective and most likely to be perceived as enjoyable "play" by a school pupil. So-called "play-based" or "student centered" approaches (i.e. expect the student to know what they're supposed to learn by themselves, while the teacher just slacks off) are merely a source of confusion and frustration for shoolkids.