Perhaps this is true in primary school, but I think in secondary school and definitely in university, education can be engaging while remaining completely intellectually honest and devoid of outright appeals to emotion.
When education becomes about how to think and not what to think, it is inherently more interesting. I remember taking my first moral philosophy class in university, and much to my surprise, it was one of the most engaging classes I ever took precisely because it challenged everything I thought I knew. The professor could have spent the time teaching us what to think (e.g. just what the major moral philosophy theories are) but instead she used the socratic method and challenged each of us about what we already believed and how those philosophers like Kant came to their theories.
Indeed, intellectual and moral relativism is dangerous because it does the same thing religion does, it is a method of coming to knowledge/truth (an epistemology) that no one else has access to and/or that relies on subjective evidence (i.e. emotions/feelings).