"Education is not the filling of a pail, but a lighting of a fire." -William Butler Yeats
Kids naturally love to learn. It's in how they explore the world and how they discover. The challenge of education is to keep that love fresh and new when the learning gets more difficult and more detailed. The best way to find the balance is to encourage kids to ask as many questions as possible and to look for as many answers as possible on their own. Sometimes that can be as simple as letting the kids pick the topic of a given assignment or to choose one of several assignments based on a single topic.
Lessons should as often as possible be guided around how a child learns, especially in a smaller setting like homeschooling. It's hard to do this with larger classes with many learning styles, but a kid who learns best by reading material isn't going to do their best potential in a setting that requires them to listen to a lecture and take notes. I like to encourage kids to seek their own education while introducing them to traditional elements (particularly in language arts where certain classic books are expected in upper grades).
My undergraduate degree is in Women and Gender Studies, and I was a music and psychology major for the first several years of college, but my specialties are math, science, and English. I make math more accessible and less dreary for students of all ages. I was a reporter for two years for my college newspaper, and I helped in the APA writing lab for the psychology department. I can help students express themselves through writing, as well as helping them build strong prose.
I have played clarinet for many years, both as part of ensembles and as a hobby on my own, and I was a music major for four years. With that comes a broad base of music knowledge and writing skills. Music is mathematics given expression, and the bridge between the two is one of my favorite places.