the agency to persist

[keannu]

What does this "agency" mean? "action, power, or operation"?

330-287
ex)Young children always find that new knowledge makes more sense if it is linked to something within their own experience.New knowledge needs to have a purpose; this has sometimes been called 'knowing how' rather than 'knowing that'. This is the kind of knowledge that might help a child to construct a model or plant a bulb. The child needs to know the different qualities between sticky tape and glue or which way up a bulb should be planted for it to grow. Here, new knowledge is attached to an immediate problem which needs to be solved...
New knowledge which is separated from a purpose is not stored with any meaningfulness for the child wo lacks both the curiosity and the agency to persist. Learning this sort does not enable the child to make connections with what they already know and can easily lead to discouragement.

 

[bhaisahab]

What does this "agency" mean? "action, power, or operation"?

330-287
ex)Young children always find that new knowledge makes more sense if it is linked to something within their own experience...New knowledge which is separated from a purpose is not stored with any meaningfulness for the child wo lacks both the curiosity and the agency to persist....

It looks out of place to me. What's the rest of the sentence?

 

[emsr2d2]

I wonder if it was meant to say "urgency".

 

[keannu]

I added more, but I'm not sure if it's a typo or the writer made a mistake.
*The translation goes as "power" for "agency", which I found in a dictionary.

 

[JMurray]

New knowledge which is separated from a purpose is not stored with any meaningfulness for the child who lacks both the curiosity and the agency to persist. Learning of this sort does not enable the child to make connections with what they already know and can easily lead to discouragement.

It is an unusual usage but perhaps here an "agency" means a "power", or possibly "mechanism", that helps produce a particular result. In this case the translation might be more accurate as "impetus", or even "method".

not a teacher