I think our education system should foster one thing above all in kids: curiosity.
When curious, kids like to learn, and will learn much easier.
Too much pressure and grading can kill the natural curiosity, and then things get nasty for the kids, but also for teachers and parents. But no pressure at all will sometimes lead to kids not learning the basics at all too.
So the ideal system would probably keep an individual balance of not pressuring kids as long as they strive to learn naturally, but having "red lines" of basics that every child needs to learn with consequences for failure.