According to the nation's body politic, our society is in trouble. Kids lack stable home lives, gun crime is rife and wellbeing is at a low. Vulnerable children are drowning in a noxious cocktail of low expectations, poverty and violence. All the protagonists in the debate agree that we need a cultural step-change; that an improvement will only come when we find alternative ways to support young people in an enabling environment.

So perhaps one place to start would be the culture that schools try to create through the things they teach. Alan Johnson and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority have been scrapping recently about the canonical texts of English literature, but perhaps there are other reasons to read Jane Austen than a few votes in middle England.

At their best, schools should be routes out of poverty, a means of escape from harsh realities. Instead of being a reflection of the outside world, they should be a reflection of what we want the outside world to be. Top heads will tell you that they like to foster their own counter-cultures. Indeed this is the established casus belli on baseball hats, coats and MP3 players. We are asked to confiscate items that may tip the delicate balance towards the all-pervasive "youth culture". Incorrect school uniform is elevated to a high-order offence because it seeks to deny the rules and means by which the school projects its cultural sway. What we teach in the classroom should support these counter-cultures. Like school itself, what we teach in the classroom should be a glorious release from what some youngsters face.

As an English teacher I am increasingly asked to read contemporary books that reflect "reality". The Edge, by Alan Gibbons, depicts the story of a bullied teenager, who is abused at home and is forced to leave his school. The kids love it. But isn't the danger that we are both perpetuating what is, for most, a distant reality and making life a misery for those who have to go through similar situations? Two Weeks with the Queen by Morris Gleitzman tells the tale of a boy who loses his brother to cancer. Does this really represent a means of escapism for children? Wouldn't a trip back to Thrushcross Grange or Verona be a better counter than stories about domestic violence and homelessness?

Now the obvious problem with the classic authors is their accessibility. My Year 11s always cheer when Charles Dickens finally adds a full stop in Great Expectations. But the art of good teaching is making complex words and ideas penetrable for all (something I still struggle with). Pictures, audio and YouTube can all help and these methods should be encouraged. Furthermore, even if some find stories such as Oliver Twist equally harrowing (despite their historical distance), we should at the very least teach books that present a different world. In fact, teaching to the world currently projected by the media et al won't help us make the changes we need.