"The only wise one, is the one who understands silence", emphasise Erik Gustaf Geijer in a poem from 1840. But how can we understand silence? This paper focuses on silence in educational contexts. Silence can be desirable and enjoyable, aggravating and embarrassing for everyone involved. Silence can also be regarded as an essential and an unavoidable part of human life. If we look into a classroom we can sometimes see the teacher's struggle to get the pupils to be silent. But then again a moment later what happens when a pupil fails to participate during a planned discussion, and remains silent, even though the topic might provoke responses whereby everyone has something to say? How do the teacher and the other pupils react to the silent pupil? We can assume that silence means different things to different people, and that it can communicate many and different things. Silence can, so to say, be "used" in various ways. We can, for example, elect to be silent, but in some situations silence is imposed, as one cannot find words to respond, or we can be silenced. Within this paper multiple meanings of silence, as well as different expressions of silence, will be highlighted. Finally, the value of silence in the process of teaching and learning will be discussed.