Stupid Questions

As a teacher, I encourage students to ask all the questions they can come up with and that there are no stupid questions. Well, that is a misstatement. There are stupid questions such as "Are there any good talent agents in NYC?" Believe it or not, but I have seen that questions several times. It is stupid because of course there are several. But I think the asker really wants to know something else, such as "Are there any talent agents in NYC that are legit that might be interested in representing me?" That is not a stupid question. And young people always want to know what is going to happen at an audition they have, but they fail to include what the audition is for. Most of the time when they do say what it is for, they don't say who is holding the auditions So what it boils down to is that the stupidity of the question is determined by how well it has been asked. People need to include all the info needed for the answerer to give a good answer. The askers need to ask precisely what they want to know and avoid over generalizing. And they could be polite. I got one today which was to the point and not really stupid, though it was 'way too broad a topic, but it was curt and ended with a demand that I answer. Well, I am happy to answer, even when the question is stupid because I want to protect kids from scams and help them when they need help. I don't really approve of homework questions, either; especially when they can be answered if the kid reads the assignment. But once in a while a homework question is so intriguing that I can't help answering it. One last irritation I will add here is that I really don't like to answer a question that can be answered if the asker will just google the topic. That's what I would have to do to answer it, so again I think it is a stupid question if the the asker is just avoiding putting out any effort on his own to answer it.