Revolution from within

Changing education ideally would mean smashing down the system completely. 
No more kids in rows of desks! 
No more boring textbooks!
Down with parrotting and up with real learning!

The problem is, most teachers work inside that system.  We have to put food on the table and clothes on our kids' backs.  We may want to rebel, but we can't afford to lose our jobs.  Welcome to the real world.

Is compromise between "the system" and our ideals possible?  I say it is. 
I say take the books, take the rows of students and add little drops of meaning.

How do you do that?

Make tasks communicative.  Not all of them, not all at once.  But start.

Take a fill-in-the-blank exercise.  Put the students in pairs and have one read the sentence to the other while the other fills in the gap.

Take two readings and have students do a jigsaw task.

Have students demonstrate comprehension with art such as drawings, collages and cellphone videos.

Have students break down concepts from the book to teach each other.