The focus of this chapter is to discuss the role of explicit instruction (or the lack thereof) as a part of teaching quality and its relevance in Nordic lower secondary classrooms. Voluminous research has suggested that explicit instruction is critical for students’ learning, as it makes learning processes explicit and clear through detailed models, strategies, and examples of the skills that students are expected to learn and demonstrate. However, our analyses of Nordic lower secondary classrooms in mathematics, language arts, and social science education suggest systematically low scores in features of explicit instruction elements such as Modelling (MOD), Strategy Use and Instruction (SUI), Feedback (FEED), and Purpose (PUR). Student-centred ways of working and inquiry approaches to teaching have long been embraced as key values in Nordic schooling and curricula, and scholars and teachers often perceive explicit instruction as teacher-centred and opposed to student-centred ways of working. In this chapter, we discuss the possible tension(s) between explicit instruction and student-centred teaching in Nordic classrooms and link these ways of teaching to Nordic policies and values in teaching.