I Asked the Same Question Seven Times. Nobody Sighed.

There's a number nobody talks about in school, and it's *how many times you're allowed to ask.*

In my class, the answer is roughly one. You can ask once. If you still don't get it, you can *maybe* ask again, but you can feel the room tighten — the teacher's patience, the other kids' impatience, the clock. By the second time, you're holding everyone up. By the third, you're the problem. So you stop. You stop at the exact moment you most need to keep going.

I am a seven-times person. I don't know why. With balancing chemical equations, it took me seven goes before it clicked. Seven different explanations, seven small angles, before the thing finally locked into place. No human teacher with forty students and a syllabus to finish can give one boy seven tries on one topic. It's not their fault. There simply isn't time.

The tutor had time.

I asked it to explain balancing equations. Got it half-right. Asked again. It rephrased. Closer. I asked it to do an example slowly. Then another. Then I asked it the *same* doubt I'd had at the start, the one I was embarrassed was still there on attempt five. It answered like it was the first time I'd asked. No edge in its voice, because it doesn't have one. By the seventh explanation, I balanced one myself. Then ten more, just because I finally could.

Here's what I've realised. I was never a "slow learner." I was a learner who needed more repetitions than the system was willing to give. That's a completely different thing. One is about my brain. The other is about the clock.

For the first time, I had a teacher with no clock.