I think it's a kind of natural selection for kids. Surviving the peer pressure (and authority pressure). That should be OK education for some of them, not for the majority though.
Funny, I was exposed to similar bullshit growing up in the communist USSR. All propaganda forced on people was always justified by the most of humane reasons. Do you want to support the oppressed of the world? The starving? The exploited? Of course we were!
It was only later in life you start to notice some fat smirking person sitting in the shadows and enjoying the fruits of that mass enthusiasm... and mass scarifie. Some of the kids I new have noticed the falsehood early on, but decided to play along. Most were clueless and later shocked when the whole communist system collapsed around them. And a rare few had chosen to simply stand for the truth and face the consequences.
Edit: I just remembered something funny that's related. I went with my son's class on a field trip to the planetarium once. Instead of the nice star show everyone was expecting, the kids were shown a film about global warming. That wasn't so bad, except that it was the worst kind of propaganda: millions of people are going to die in flooding and other natural disasters, millions more will die of malaria, all kinds of cute animals are going to die, etc, etc... unless you kids grow up to do something about it. How low do you have to stoop to propagandize grade-school children by scaring the crap out of them?! Anyway, the film ended with some advice about turning off dripping faucets (I swear)! The lights were turned on and we all looked at each other in stunned silence. Then one hilarious child said, quite loudly, "Do as we say, or hurricanes will destroy your house!" The entire audience cracked up. We laughed it out of our system and moved on happily to the next event. I swear that kid has a future in show business...