Let's start by making sure students know that Rabi Akiva and his general Bar Kohva were the leadership that led the jewish nation to its worst disaster until the holocaust - because of their irrational messianism.
Let's engage in serious understanding of the history and that just the official version in the tanakh: that limits on marrying non-jews are an addition from "bait sheni", we can ask if the "akedat yitshak" myth is related to the molekh sect sacrificing kids in ben-hinom valley, etc.
Because if you want history that's what you'll get, not the biblical myths.