Self-silencing (Jack in Silencing the self: women and depression, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1991; Jack and Ali, in: Jack, Ali (eds) Silencing the self across cultures: depression and gender in the social world, Oxford University Press, New York, 2010), the tendency to silence one's self-expressions in service of maintaining important relationships, has been studied primarily as a risk factor for depression in women. In this study, self-silencing in teacher-student relationships was assessed in a sample of college students (n = 142) and 4th-graders (n = 52), using a new scale adapted from Jack and Dill's (Psychol Women Q 16:97-106, 1992) Silencing the Self scale. Self-silencing in school was shown to be related to several negative academic outcomes in both samples, including low behavioral engagement, negative emotions (i.e., sadness, anxiety, anger), and maladaptive strategies for coping with failure. The results of path analyses suggested that self-silencing relates to poor academic outcomes through its association with reduced student autonomy and poor teacher-student relationship quality. Based on these results, a reinterpretation of self-silencing through the perspective of self-determination theory (Ryan and Deci in Self-determination theory: basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. The Guilford Press, New York, 2017) is presented.