Great-Granddaughter of 'Hidden Figures' Katherine Johnson Earns Perfect Math Score

[ehrnst]

Na Kia Boykin is the great-granddaughter of NASA Langley’s “human computer” Katherine Johnson and she’s scored a perfect 600 on her math Standards of Learning test. The third-grader was honored by her school on Wednesday.

“I like math because I can look at a problem and figure it out,” Boykin told the Daily Press. “You can just look at the problem and do it. You use the numbers, and you use your brain… It’s a good challenge.”
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Boykin highlighted her great-grandmother’s love for science and math. Her father Douglas Boykin, which is Johnson’s middle daughter’s son, said his daughter aimed for a perfect score on her test.

‘I told her she would get a 500 at least, but I said, ‘Don’t be disappointed if you get a 585 or something,'” he expressed. “She came in the door the next day and said ‘What do you think I got?’’ I said, ‘585.’ She exclaimed, ‘Higher than that.'”

“Finally she said, ‘I got all of ‘em! I got a perfect 600!’ And I started screaming like it was the Super Bowl,” expressed the proud father.

https://atlantablackstar.com/2018/06/29/great-granddaughter-of-hidden-figures-katherine-johnson-earns-perfect-math-score/

[shenmue]

1. Yes!

[rurallib]

2. Looks like great grandma is still alive

hope she and young Na Kia do a little bonding over some challenging math problems

[a kennedy]

3. What a wonderful and fantastic story......

Asks for sharing.......

[DFW]

4. Sometimes the genes ARE passed down

This doesn'T surprise me at all. Once, when my daughter was law school in the States, she told me about a case she was studying. I told her she was a direct descendant of one of the attorneys involved. She said sure, ha-ha. I said, no, really. This guy was my great-grandfather, and he died before I was born. His daughter, my dad's mom, was the one who irked Fiorello LaGuardia and campaigned for Humphrey in the 1940s. And whaddya know, my daughter becomes the youngest partner ever (at age 31) in a major NYC law firm. She works out of their Frankfurt arm.

So I truly believe that certain gifts and aptitudes are genetically passed down, just like physical attributes like prematurely white hair or green eyes. Na Kia Boykin appears to be another classic example.

[Duppers]

15. Wow! Congrats to your impressive daughter for following...

her genes/her dreams.

My son has "channeled" his dad - both physicists, inventors, and math geniuses. He thanks me for his bit of neurosis.

[DFW]

16. Your son sounds almost like the main character in my novel

Minus the neurosis, but he was a frustrated physicist/inventor (I am neither--had to use my imagination and a few pointers from some people who DID know a bit about physics). Of course, he DID get to meet Thomas Jefferson for his efforts, so sometimes being fictional has its perks.

My daughter never really learned that there limits as to what a person can do. When she was in law school, she looked around to work for a judge or law firm to clerk for during the summer, which law students are expected to do. But this was right smack in the middle of the Bush recession, and there was nothing to be had anywhere. So, she applied for a volunteer position with the UN War Crimes Tribunal in Sierra Leone (as in "Blood Diamond" ). She was one of the 2% of the applicants that get accepted.

We thought she was crazy. It took her 3 days after she got there for her to establish contact with us, and she proudly said she found an apartment to share with a woman from India, and they even had electricity and running water for a few hours each day. On "vacation," she took Gambia Airways (!!) over to Senegal where she picked up some deadly infection. The local Sierra Leone doctor gave her some "antibiotics" when she got back, but the doctors there resell the real antibiotics on the black market, and give their patients sugar pills. Half dead, we screamed at her over the phone to go see the UN doctor ("I don't want to be a nuisance to them" ), which she finally did. So she returned alive, said Africa was "cool," and acted if she had just spent the weekend in Toronto, or something.

Definitely my dad's granddaughter. My dad, a skinny tennis fanatic and healthier in his seventies than I was thirty years younger, got a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer at age 77. A death sentence. His reaction when he got the news? He turned to my mom, and said, "so much for clean living."

[Duppers]

19. WOW! OMG!

Your daughter has not only lived a fascinating life but poor girl had a very close call in Senegal - Yikes!! I can just imagine how worried you and your wife were. And here I am, a silly mom, a bit worried about my son's just going hiking/backpacking in the back coastal country of western Scotland for 3 wks.

DFW, you don't need to write a novel, just an autobiography. I'm serious. Your life is full of more interesting stories than anyone's else's I know. Among other stories, who else has had lunch with Howard Dean and Helen Thomas at the same time? I wish you'd kept your posts in your DU journal, because, for me, they were endlessly entertaining. I've a friend in NYC, an Academy award winning sound editor, who has taken my calls when sitting at his big console with some stars, but I've always been more fascinated with the stories of your life, your family members, and the characters you've known. It's not just the people you know and have known, but just as with some other great DUers here, it's your story-telling that pulls us in.

[DFW]

25. That is probably the one time we were really frantic

We had no idea where she was other than SOMEWHERE in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. And Americans need a visa to go to Sierra Leone. So do Germans, but they get one automatically, so my daughter traveled on her German passport. My wife could have gone, but I would have been denied boarding at the airport (or detained upon arrival). So I couldn't just hop the next plane for Sierra Leone even if I wanted to--and from Boston, where we were at the time, there is no such thing anyway.

As for Helen and Howard, I can actually tell you exactly who, besides me, has had lunch with both of them at the same time: my brother! He and I picked Helen up on the way to lunch in his car. It was just the four of us. We all had a great time, and planned to do it again when time permitted. Unfortunately none of our schedules permitted a repeat performance before Helen's health failed. My main reason for wanting to set that up is that, though they were both friends of mine, not to mention huge national personalities, they had never actually met. As it was, it took me eighteen months to find a day when we could all do it on the same day at the same time in the same place. Helen rarely left Washington anymore at that point, and Howard is the only one I know whose schedule is as insane as mine even in normal times. Besides his involvement in Democratic politics, Howard is both an engaged environmentalist as well as big campaigner to stop human trafficking. Several years back, he was an organizer of a march from Bangkok to the Burmese border to draw attention to human trafficking. At the same time that Howard was swatting mosquitoes in the jungle near Burma, some armchair warriors on DU were busy accusing him of being a "sellout corporatist."

I appreciate the kind words, but just because my path has crossed with some people who have REALLY made a difference in this world, that doesn't automatically mean MY autobiography is one that would sell more than 25 copies (oops, my parents are gone, so make that 24).

[bluecollar2]

30. Gambia Airways

As a retired mechanic I often wonder who does the C checks on some of these birds...

[DFW]

33. As a non-mechanic

I think I prefer not to know

[calimary]

31. Sheesh - I read that when Jackie Onassis was dying of non-Hodgkin lymphoma

she reportedly wondered aloud why she’d spent so much time and energy watching her weight so carefully all her life, if she wasn’t gonna make it past age 64.

[JI7]

18. it can be environment also. people will be more familiar with things their family members and others

close to them did. And family members are more likely to teach their kids and other young people in their family what they know.

[DFW]

26. Environment definitely counts, of course

If you don't know there is such a thing as math, or why it is important, chances are you will never get father than being able to make change as a sales counter faster than your co-worker. The fact that this girl's grandmother was a pioneer and a path-maker definitely helped.

[Cracklin Charlie]

5. I watched the movie Saturday night.

Twice.
It was so good, I watched it twice.

Congratulations, Na Kia!

[irisblue]

8. It is an excellent flick

[iluvtennis]

14. + 1. Saw it 3 times. Once with my sister, once with my mom, and once with my two teens. :-)

[spooky3]

22. One of my favorite all time! Loved it! Nt

[Kind of Blue]

6. Thanks for posting!

[malaise]

7. Wonderful

Thanks for this

[panader0]

9. So very impressive.

[sheshe2]

10. Beautiful.

this made me tear up a bit.

Go Na Kia.

[dlk]

11. Wonderful! The Legacy of Excellence Continues

[GeoWilliam750]

12. Excellent!!!

Looking forward to hearing about her in the future.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. Thanks for posting.

While I am not remotely in the same league as these two women, I can say this. I went to college on and off for many years, mostly taking liberal arts/sociology/history those kinds of classes. I loved them, and I did well in them. Then I took a math class. OMFG! There was a right answer and a way to get to that right answer! I felt as if I'd been lied to for years, which certainly wasn't the case but it felt like that.

Here's another story about scores on tests. Names have been changed, I'll say that up front.

When my son, Roderick, was in 9th grade, he took biology and then took the biology SAT II in that subject. When the scores came in, he had a 770. I told him he needed to call Mrs. Overton, his biology teacher and tell her thank you. Yes, he'd worked hard and done well on the test, but she'd also taught him a lot. So he did make that phone call.

The next year he took chemistry, took the chemistry SAT II test and got a 780. When the score came in, I told him he needed to call Mr. Bakersfield, his chemistry teacher and tell him thank you. He did.

Junior year he took physics. Took the physics SAT II. Got an 800. He said, "Oh. There was one question I wasn't sure of. I guess I got it right."

[ProfessorGAC]

17. Looks Like Apple Fell Straight Down

Great story. Thanks for finding it!

[BobTheSubgenius]

20. Kudos to the little genius!

The world needs brilliant people, now, more than ever. I hope she does something great with her life.

My middle step-grand is really smart, too. A couple of years ago, she had a report card that was pretty awe-inspiring, at least for the family. Her lowest grade was 97.5 and she had three subjects in which she had a perfect 100.

She followed that up by being the only student her age to get 100% on the standardized state science test. She is also vying for first chair in flute and piccolo against students as much as 5 years older, sings the national anthem at every school (and some non-school) event, solos in school musical events, has been bitten by the acting bug and plays JV basketball and volleyball.

Her two older cousins have graduated and are on to college, and her 3 younger ones all made honor roll in their respective grade levels.

[USALiberal]

21. Her and Huey Lewis have that in common! Nt

[spooky3]

23. We need mathletes! Outstanding! Nt

[grantcart]

24. Great story

It's because she gave 110%.

(A phrase that drives me nuts for its inherent anti math sentiment.)

[SunSeeker]

27. Very cool.

[smirkymonkey]

28. Amazing little girl!

She definitely takes after her brilliant great-grandmother! Congratulations Na Kia!

[YOHABLO]

29. She makes me want to go back and re-learn math all over again.

[Hotler]

32. Easy to do, have a look at this.....

https://www.khanacademy.org/

http://www.openculture.com/

[YOHABLO]

34. Thanks, checking it out right now.