Abstract

There is a dialectic at work between doing justice to the ‘score’ of the living tradition of Catholic education and empowering personal rendition of it among learners whose agency is brought into play. In the section ‘Learning and Agency’ I explain what I mean by promoting agency in learners. In sections ‘McDonough on Dissent’ and ‘Hogan on Education and Learning’ I draw upon two recent philosophers of education who have commented insightfully on different aspects of the need to develop agency in students. The section ‘Risks and Benefits of Promoting Agency’ outlines the principal risks and benefits one might expect to incur by giving salience to learning agency. Finally, in the section ‘Original Response’ I underline the importance, both for their educational and their religious development, of eliciting an original response from those we teach.