I really never thought about this question. I always told my students when I was teaching, "Don't ever be embarrassed about asking a question, because you will never know the answer unless you ask. There may be others who want to know the same thing but are too afraid or embarrassed to ask. Even if someone should laugh, that person probably doesn't know and are only laughing because they are pretending to know the answer, so we need to let them give the correct answer." This statement really helped my shy kids, and they soon discovered those who laughed usually didn't know the answer. There was less laughing and a lot more questions were ask after that.