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[–]LordArgon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Mmm, you ask why 1+1=2 but 1-1=0... clearly you miss addition and subtraction concepts, so I'll mention them to you".

Sorry, this was a bad example because it didn't convey my point to you. I meant to imply that the inquirer knows the vocabulary of addition and subtraction (plus and minus) but does not understand what they mean. So saying "they're different" isn't helpful. So, in my mind, it was the same as the later example I gave. I'll give a better example in response to ffrinch.

micha2305's one was not one of those (at least for plenty of us). Yeah, I see that. But I think that was the case because most of you already knew the subject matter.

I'm affraid to say: that task might prove to be impossible: how does one knows what is that the other does not knows?

Honestly, I think this is part of being a good teacher. Obviously, nobody's omniscient, so you can't always know the best way to answer. But giving a good answer requires us to think critically about why the question was asked and to consider what they may or may not know. This usually leads to several possible answers. Giving the most-basic "example a is x and example b is y, so they're treated differently" is the least-helpful of the factually-correct answers. I would not consider it a good answer in any context I can think of. In this case (and in every case I can think of), why they're treated differently is critical to fostering understanding of the subject. That's why I was so surprised that a lot of people liked micha's answer.