Sorry you feel so discouraged. I'm actually really encouraged to hear there are Econ professors out there that are willing to pose these questions to their students in the first place, even if it's outside of the classroom. That's honestly super refreshing.

Idk how much freedom you have to teach the class the way you want to, but sounds like you might have an opportunity to present various schools of thought about the questions you mentioned? If so, I say go all in! If not, I hope you find an opportunity to do that at a college that's more open to teaching people HOW to think rather than WHAT to think. (Not saying you should quit, job security is important, just hope you eventually find a more rewarding fit at some point.)

Also, FWIW, your student that's going into data science/software engineering and didn't feel like he got anything meaningful from his economics degree sounds like he'll be primed for the orange pill in a year or two.