The article presents the concept of rhetorical agency to understand and analyse the parallel and paradoxical agencies teachers are offered, and limited by, under discourses of globalisation within education. The paper identifies typical arguments, reactions, narratives and metaphors of globalisation. It discusses some of the consequences these have on the premises of teacher agencies locally, nationally and globally. The article raises normative questions on the kind of agencies that are necessary for teachers in an open and glocalised world. It suggests new interpretations of the "bildung" tradition as a constructive rhetorical agency to respond to and balance the needs of local, national and global interest in education.