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Photograph by Ryan Olein
Monroe student awarded position in Carver Program for science and math
Program is designed to honor George Washington Carver and to encourage young scientists
By Genevieve Roja
In the Okafar household, "Dawson's Creek" might as well be the name of a babbling brook hidden deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains. That's because the four Okafar children don't watch the popular teen television show--or any other TV show during the school week--because their father, Eugene Okafar, doesn't allow it. Instead, the family reads the newspaper.
When they do turn on the tube, it's likely to be "20/20" or "60 Minutes," an Okafar Sunday ritual. Even in the car, Okafar exposes his children to the more realistic drama of current events by tuning into an all-news radio station.
This may sound a bit like punishment, but it seems that Eugene Okafar's approach to parenting has paid off. His eldest son Joseph, an eighth-grader at Monroe Middle School, is the newest addition to the Carver Scholars Program, named after the famed African American scientist, inventor, teacher and humanitarian, Dr. George Washington Carver.
The Carver Scholars Program--new for this academic year in the Campbell Union School District--aims to encourage African American students who have shown a keen interest in math and science, and also to give students like Joseph a chance to be recognized in the community for their scholastic efforts.
"It's sort of like growing our own mathematicians and scientists," says Debra Watkins, one of the co-founders of the pilot program that is overseen by the Santa Clara County Alliance of Black Educators, in conjunction with the Healing Institute for Jobs, Recovery, Academics & Housing, a local volunteer organization.
"[The program] is to support and identify potential," Watkins says.
Watkins, who is in her 22nd year of teaching high school students and serves as a counselor at San Jose's Independence High School, says she saw early on in her career that African-American students were having difficulty in subjects like math and science. Furthermore, the National Alliance of Black School Educators and the National Science Foundation had conducted research that marked an achievement gap in the two areas, which also showed that there was a growing disinterest in related careers among African American students.
Enter the Healing Institute's CEO, Halim Mustafa, who together with Watkins and colleague Rasheed Salaam, wrote a program with two goals: to target African American students, and to engage schools in recognizing Dr. Carver.
Around Jan. 5, the day Congress has decreed to recognize Carver, the Campbell Union School and High School districts were informed of the program. District officials decided to participate.
The program operates on two criteria: that a student be nominated by a math or science teacher, and that the nominated student be dedicated to or have a serious interest in math or science. Nomination forms are then sent to the Black Educators alliance for approval. Since the program began in February, six students from the Campbell district--including Joseph Okafar--have been nominated, and will be honored in a ceremony at the Tech Museum in June.
Joseph's nomination came easy for science teacher Kelly Shannon, who says Joseph's innate sense of wonder is clearly etched in his personality.
"He's very curious and works hard trying to solve problems," says Shannon, who has known Joseph for a number of years through the school's Homework Center. "He's not just looking for the answer, but the steps on how to work out the problem."
Joseph, who maintains a 3.75 grade point average and who'll be attending Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose in the fall, says his career possibilities are endless. He's thinking of becoming a lawyer, a rocket scientist or an astronaut. When asked what he'd do once he got into space, Joseph, who at 5-foot-10 plays small forward on the San Jose Blue Chips, replied naturally "I'd like to go to the moon and play basketball."
His answers don't come as a surprise to his father.
"I emphasized the need for scholastic aptitude and he was just fluent with it," says Eugene, who emigrated to the US from Nigeria in 1977, works as a manager at Auspex in Santa Clara, and has lived with his four children in Santa Clara for 11Ž2 years.
"I guess he gets distracted like other kids too, but once he commits to something, he can be very dedicated," Okafar says. "He takes his studies as very challenging."
Joseph Okafar also has a variety of interests, ranging from the pinhole camera he's been working on for the year-long Eighth- Grade Exhibition Project to the war in Kosovo, to the Battle of the Alamo, and yes, even Bill and Monica.
"He [President Clinton] is supposed to be a role model to young kids and he's not acting that way," Joseph says.
Conscious of the plight of Kosovar refugees fleeing their homeland, and the number of them dying from starvation in the camps, Joseph Okafar said he'd like to invent a cure for world hunger by enlarging plants, fruits and vegetables. But he's not sure how to do that--yet.
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Campbell, California
