This is an account of the experience of a college instructor and a group of prospective social studies teachers as they answer a simple question concerned with direction of travel through the Panama Canal and explore the reactions of students. The situation originates in a class discussion focusing on ways of asking and responding to classroom questions. The hypothesis of the instructor is that in the broad field of social studies it is probably impossible for a teacher to answer all questions that students might ask, and that it might not be advisable to always answer all student questions even when the answer is known. The students view this theory as anti-intellectual. Reaction sheets are completed by the students following the instructor's experiment in classroom question and answer techniques. (SHM)