How can core education help prevent cyclical periods of populist know-nothing-ism?

Following on from my last post, I'm beginning to think that the biggest problem driving populism, conspiracy theories, and general undermining of institutions is the failure of our educational system to provide a grounding in how major historical events and advancements in the totality of human knowledge led to the modern era, something that would provide young people a mental framework for why we're better off today than we were a half-century ago, and why (for example) it does not actually make sense to reopen the question of whether Hitler or Churchill was the real bad guy.

Public education doesn't generally aim to do this, or at least currently hits very wide of the mark. At its most mediocre, it seeks to teach scattered facts and/or isolated, context-less skills that are useful only for further schooling and that will thus be relevant to only a small percentage of adults seeking post-graduate education; and at its worst, it seeks to configure into the plastic brains of young people ideological priors around which there is no contemporary public consensus. A course on the history of science and technology covering major advances, the effects they had, and how modern life would be different without them would certainly be more beneficial to civics and public discourse than trying to get students to calculate the velocity of a ball rolling down a ramp. (Students interested in pursuing such study independently could do a lot worse than to begin by watching BBC's "Connections" series from the 1970's.)

Similarly, a course on the history of government and politics spanning five thousand years of development from tribes and early agricultural settlements, through the slow demise of monarchy, all the way to liberalism and 20th century despots, alongside major developments and their long-term effects like the origin and purpose of dictators in the Roman Republic (quite distinct from the modern notion of "dictator") and the consequences of the Magna Carta on the relationship between the rulers of England and the people, would be a lot more useful than spending an entire semester talking about the three branches of the federal government, or memorizing the preamble to the Constitution (yes, a thing I had to do in fifth grade!), or an apocryphal account of how a bill becomes a law, or the number of wives Henry VIII had. The aim should be to help pupils develop a sense for why things turned out the way they did, not to force students to memorize the particular details of scattered historical events.

The reason we need to keep re-defeating bad ideas like socialism, rent control, and trade protectionism (and challenging nonsense like neo-monarchy) is that we have failed to create a durable civilization-level memory in which the major lessons humanity has learned throughout history are taught to young people so they don't need to learn them again from direct experience. Modern civilization is a complex edifice built atop a foundation of such lessons that have been learned, often the hard way, over thousands of years. We cannot possibly afford to rebuild this entire structure from scratch every two generations: avoiding that is literally the most important justification for compulsory primary education in a republic.

The educational foundations young people will most benefit from when they later engage in civic life in an informed way as adults must include:

1. A history of institutions (especially those of science, technology, commerce, and government) that isn't merely a survey or set of cherry-picked examples, but that follows a purposeful approach that actually contextualizes these things within their place in the ancient yet on-going story of human civilization.
2. Basic economics, including:
• A history of development of some major industries
• Game theory, with concrete examples
• A survey of largely settled economic questions that explains from first principles why some policies work and others (like rent control) invariably fail
3. The ability to argue for someone else's position, which requires one to understand that position and its best arguments. (You are an effective advocate for your own position really only when you understand the opposing viewpoint(s) well enough to be able to argue for those, as well.)
4. Foundations of basic knowledge across the breadth of human study, from philosophy to military history to ethics to art and literature to modern science, with a focus on timeless principles and key historical developments that pupils can use as a guide for dealing with (seemingly) novel problems. Simply knowing that philosophers 2,500 years ago struggled with many of the same basic problems we face today would by itself be a lesson in epistemic humility and may provide resistance toward the degree of conviction in their priors that too many young people have despite their utter lack of perspective about the messy and often brutal history of human civilization.
5. Basic science, such that students come away with something like what you'd get from the Total Perspective Vortex, including:
• Basic biology, the mammalian lifecycle, genetics and evolution, ecosystems, and the variety of life on Earth
• Basic physics, including our present understanding of Earth science, cosmology, the origin of stars and planets, and the structure of the universe
• A history of scientific developments that led from the taming of fire to the development of nuclear weapons and to having a supercomputer in your pocket

Additionally, there are useful skills that young people must learn to thrive in modern society. While some agility must be maintained in curricula to adjust to a rapidly evolving technological backdrop (e.g., training students on how to use LLMs and how to understand their limitations and errors may be a worthwhile subject in 2025), there are some foundational skills that are likely to remain relevant for generations:

1. Home finance, including topics such as loans, interest rates, and amortization and the basics of US taxation
2. The principles underlying engineering, making physics more concrete by applying it to real world problems. This would give pupils a basic understanding of mechanical forces and elementary machines, energy, and electricity.
3. How to spot hucksters, grifters, and scams
4. Basic home and auto repair: bring back shop class

In addition, students should do some foreign travel, giving them a first-hand perspective on other civilizations, what they share with us, and how they differ.