Confidence & Being Myself
The Sevens
Quick round with the little whiteboards! Mr. Ackerman said a times-table question, everyone scribbled an answer, and on “up!” the whole class lifted their boards at once. Like a wall.
Seven times four. Nate wrote 21. He wasn’t guessing. He worked it out, got 21, and checked it once. Then, up went the boards. And all along the wall of boards, in all different handwriting, it said 28. 28. 28.
“Close, Nate,” said Mr. Ackerman, kindly and quickly. Then he moved on, because there were nine more questions. He didn’t stop on the mistake. Nobody laughed. Nobody even really looked.
Nate wiped off the 21 with the side of his hand, swish, before anybody had finished reading it. A gray smear went right across the board. He laid it face-down on the desk. Nobody else did that.
“I’m stupid,” said Nate. Not to Mr. Ackerman. Not to the class. He said it downward, to the back of his own whiteboard, in the plain, ordinary voice you use for something you’ve decided is just a fact.
Ola, next to him, heard. She didn’t say anything, because she wasn’t sure if it was meant for anybody. She just stopped writing for a second and looked at the side of his face. Then Mr. Ackerman said the next one.
Six times seven. Mr. Ackerman had already said it. Everybody was scribbling. Nate’s board lay face-down, gray smear and all, and “up!” was about four seconds away.
What does Nate do?
Every choice costs something. Let’s see what.
Leave the board blank and hold it up empty
Nate turned the board over and wrote nothing at all. When Mr. Ackerman said “up!”, he held up a board with a gray smear and nothing else. It went up at exactly the same time as everybody else’s. So it looked almost the same.
Mr. Ackerman was looking along the other row. Ola saw, and didn’t say. And it turned out that a blank board going up at just the right moment is something you can do about nine times before anybody notices.
By Thursday it was every round. Up went the board, on time, every time, gray smear facing out. Nate got very good at the exact face you make when your board is up. Nobody asked him for an answer all week.
Six twos went by. Ten fives. Four threes. Nate did every one of them in his head without even stopping, and held up a blank board for every single one. Nobody in the whole room found out that he knew. Nate knew, though. Under the desk, on his fingers, he did six sevens again, slowly. Forty-two. It came out right.
Say, “It’s the sevens I get wrong”
“It’s the sevens,” said Nate. Still quite quietly, but out into the room this time, not down at the board. “I get the sevens wrong. The other ones are mostly okay.”
“Eights for me,” said Ola, right away, without looking up, in the flat way you say something that’s just true. Mr. Ackerman heard that bit. “Sevens and eights. Noted,” he said, and kept going with six sevens.
Nate wrote 45 for six times seven and held it up. It was wrong, and everyone could see it was wrong. He got the next sevens one wrong too. And the one after that. He didn’t wipe a single one off.
On Friday Mr. Ackerman put a sheet on Nate’s desk. Only sevens. “Ten minutes. Just these.” Nate picked up his pen. 7 × 1. He wrote 7. 7 × 2. He wrote 14. Next to him, Ola was doing a sheet of eights.
Write something silly on purpose and hold it up
Nate wrote BANANA in capital letters, right across the board. He held it up at exactly the right moment and kept his face completely, totally straight.
Four people laughed. Ola too. She’d been about to say something, and now she didn’t need to. Mr. Ackerman made the teacher face that is one third annoyed and two thirds trying not to laugh. “Thank you, Nate,” he said, and moved on.
It became his thing. By Wednesday, people were watching his board to see what it said. He did PENGUIN. He did a drawing of Mr. Ackerman with enormous eyebrows. He was actually quite good at it.
In the last round on Friday, Mr. Ackerman went along the row asking for answers out loud. Ola. Then Zainab. Straight past Nate, without stopping. Nate noticed. It felt half like a relief and half like being left out of a game. At the end of the day, Zainab asked if he would draw her a penguin of her own. He did her a very good one, with eyebrows.