[adamsea]

Not everyone is proactive as you are, and having skilled professional teachers who can engage students to motivate them to learn something they may not on their own, is a collective good.

Uneducated people (and I am distinguishing education from intelligence; uneducated most emphatically does not mean unintelligent) are bad for society. Witness climate change denial, Trump and his ilk, etc.

[randomdata]

I'm not sure it needs to be mutually exclusive. While it is true that teachers are not strictly necessary to utilize our modern educational methods, there is no reason a professional cannot motivate a needing student in using the same tools to the same end.