Asking questions

TL;DR: He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.
– Chinese Proverb

I've been dealing with people's attitudes towards questions my whole life. It's like asking a question makes you dumb, when in reality you admit being dumb and ask the question to change this. When I was in engineering school and a teacher asked a solution to a problem, no one wanted to answer because they might sound stupid, but isn't the whole premise of being a student an admission of one's own "stupidity"? I.e. You are admitting that you don't know and that's why are studying..

There was a funny moment when I asked a counter-question in a physics class, the teacher purposefully turned my question into a strawman to make it sound laughable and asked if that was what I meant, I agreed that it still was what I was asking, and everyone just started laughing to idea of asking a question, never bothering to even consider the substance of the question i.e. what I actually was asking.
Then the teacher asked everyone else: "Why on earth are you all laughing? That is exactly where one would look for the answer"
Then everyone was embarrassed.. But only because the teacher told them to be. It's just funny: people laughed when the teacher "mocked" a question which was valid, then people were embarrassed when teacher pointed out that they should be.

These things happened many times, and they never learned from them. I was laughed at most of the times when I answered a question or asked one myself, regardless if I was right or not. They just assumed something of me and never let go of that. People just think that there's something wrong in taking a shot at something(i.e. trying) or asking a question.. I don't know... I think there's just something inherently "wrong" with that mentality.

People are so concerned how other people might perceive them, that they rather project an image of false confidence and knowledgeability and stay stupid than actually improve themselves, this attitude will backfire in the long run, when their skill and knowledge is put to the test.

Funniest thing is that this behavior is taught in elementary school: just repeat what you read, don't question it.