Is rejecting formal education the new fashion?

I wrote a post on Thoreau's thoughts on learning recently (you can see it here) and I have been thinking about it a lot since.  He questions the role of formal education and makes the case for learning by doing, and teaching yourself.

I am a pretty straight laced sort of person and I like to stick to the rules (even if they are silly), which sometimes winds my (much more free spirited) husband up.  I followed the conventional education route and have worked in steady jobs ever since leaving university.  

Since reading Walden, Thoreau's ideas about learning have been on my mind and, as a consequence, I have noticed some interesting articles that wouldn't have been on my radar otherwise.

One of these was on a blog, zenhabits, which I stumbled across a couple of weeks ago. It is one of the most popular blogs on the internet.  The writer, Leo Babauta, has 6 children and is a proponent of unschooling. He has an entire blog devoted to it, Unschoolery.  He makes the case for self directed learning, but also offers some insights for teachers to help them unschool their regular classroom.

I also followed a link from John Armstrong's website to wired.co.uk which, coincidentally, had a Q&A with Dale Stephens, founder of the Uncollege movement.  Stephens has written a book, called Hacking your Education, which I have also added to my reading list.  The article says Uncollege

"encourages students to be self-directed learners and to create a 'learning community in the real world' that breaks the 'dichotomy between education and life.'"

This has some real parallels with the youtube video I mentioned in my post On Expectations recently, that is, school and life shouldn't feel like two separate worlds.

Is the point of education having the certificate at the end of it or the knowledge? Or is the knowledge enough?