This Evangelical grew up Catholic: baptized, confirmed, first communion... Also happened to be National Catechism Champion in High School in Spain. And I do feel uncomfortable, to say the least, with the degree of reverence given to Mary in the Catholic church. You say that praying and lighting candles is not worshiping... I think you are splitting hairs here!
For example, in the Rosary, the portions addressed to Mary request that she "pray for us sinners" -- but when a prayer is addressed directly to God, we say, "Let us pray" -- e.g. at the end of the 5 decades, addressing "Almighty and eternal God, who by the life, death and resurrection of thine only-begotten Son, didst gain for us the fruits of everlasting life . . . . "
Do you see the difference?
That's not splitting hairs, that's a real and valid distinction.
Also, many high-schoolers' religious growth stops at Confirmation. If you were confirmed as a high-school sophomore or junior (as my daughter was), you are hardly done with learning - in fact, you have just begun. Certainly there are few high-school age religious education leaders or theology teachers, or teachers of any kind, because most young people are still learning and not ready to teach. And the last I checked theology was not a championship sport, kind of an odd concept in itself - "when I was a child, I thought and spoke as a child . . ."
But if you were taught in Confirmation class to worship Mary, I am really worried about your Religious Ed instructor.
If you were steeped in the catechism you should know that there are veru different sorts of worship. In England, they speak of some officials as “your worship” —which is short for “worthy of respect.” Not all worship is idolatry. Not all reverence even for icons is idolatry. The cult of Mary can go to extremes but so can the iconoclasm of the puritans and other radicals of the Reformation, who not only smashed beautiful statutes but white-washed murals so as not to distract from the worship of the words coming from the mouths of the preachers, which were supposed to be the true Gospel. It was not unlike the approach of the desert Muslims, except that they—unlike the Puritains—love poetry.