Sir, why are we daein’ this?” As teachers, we must try to answer every question that is asked of us by our pupils. Questions asked in good faith and in bad. Insightful questions, banal questions, questions asked with a glint in the eye and questions asked with brows furrowed.

This particular question - “Why are we daein’ this?” - was asked of me at various stages throughout my probation year, and it is the one I have most struggled to provide a cogent and succinct answer to. It’s the question I’ve taken home with me most often; the question that’s come back to me again and again, whether I’m eating breakfast, driving home or taking the bins out. Why are we daein’ this?

I received my secondary education in the private sector and, throughout, the focus was on getting as many Highers as possible and going to university: eyes on the prize. Lessons were built around equipping me and my fellow pupils with the skills we needed to pass exams; if we learned how to write with elegance or to enjoy a text for its own sake, it was a pleasant side effect and not a direct consequence of the lessons and the curriculum.

Disinterest and distress

At around the age of 15, I became caught in a cycle of disinterest and distress that I wouldn’t get the grades I needed. I crashed and burned in my fifth year, failing three of the five Highers I sat, and only redeemed myself by the skin of my teeth in my sixth year.

Luckily, I had an excellent English teacher who was able to rekindle a sense of studying literature for its own sake, rather than simply to do an exam, and of maintaining my interest without stripping the books we studied of all context and enjoyment.

A decade or so later, I find myself attempting to do the same. I hope you can understand why explaining to my pupils that they should dae this because they want to go to university or even to “get a good job” leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Despite an ongoing focus on raising attainment and closing the poverty gap, the chasm between rich and poor in Scotland, between haves and have-nots, yawns ever wider. The removal of the underlying cause (capitalism, which relies on such a gap existing to continue) isn’t currently on the Scottish government’s agenda. And so we need, for the time being, to work with what we have in front of us.

While I meet and teach many children who are focused, diligent and motivated, I meet many more who see little point in the education system and, instead, focus their energies on other pursuits; unfortunately, disruption of learning and teaching comes fairly high on their list. A few stern words focus young minds but, sooner or later, this mix of frustration and boredom tends to boil over, and I find myself confronted with the eternal question once again.

Locating the root cause of this indifference and dealing with it are beyond the scope of this article. Instead, I would like to make a modest suggestion about how teachers deal with the question of why we’re daein’ this when it’s asked of us. It is easy - especially for teachers from a middle-class background, such as myself - to forget the material conditions of many pupils’ lives. It is easy to fall back on the old “university or job” answer, ignoring the fact that both options might seem utterly irrelevant to some young people.

It is easy to be too idealistic, and to suggest that pupils should learn simply for the love of learning (try saying this to a class of National 5 pupils struggling with yet another MacCaig poem and see how it goes).

Increasing autonomy

My advice would be that we should explain the curriculum, such as it is, in terms of increasing the autonomy of our pupils.

The more they learn what the government wants them to learn, the better placed they will be to do well in their exams and operate within a society that cares little about them and would happily chew them up and spit them out in the name of surplus value. The more educated they are, the more they will be able to take their place among a nimbler, flintier workforce that can oppose oppressive employers.

Conjunctions and past participles may seem pointless and dreary, but it is our job to show our pupils that we are giving them a skill set that can and will enrich their lives in so many ways, should they so choose. We need to work within a curriculum that is often staid and outdated. It doesn’t equip our pupils with the knowledge of how to balance a budget or look after a child or change a tyre.

Nobody is expecting them to have a grand, Joycean epiphany and suddenly take to advanced grammar like never before. But if we can demonstrate in solid ways each day that much of what we’re teaching is vital, then we can perhaps do something, however small, to turn the tide of ever-increasing disparity in society. That’s why we’re daein’ this.

Eòghann MacLeòid is a newly qualified teacher in Edinburgh