By Jonathan Nguyen-Au

San Jose, CALIF⸺ Imani Butler, a teacher at Silver Creek High School, has shown students that you can pursue many interests with opportunities at Silver Creek since he began teaching.

Mr. Butler had many jobs in his life; being a father, husband, brother, son and teacher at Silver Creek High School while living by his principles of faith, family, friendship, food and fun. Well known for teaching Intro to Business and being tall, he also teaches User Experience Design (Web and Social Media Design) and Exploring Computer Science. Most people would think these subjects have nothing to do with one another. That may be true to an extent. However, Butler believes these topics have everything to do with each other as entrepreneurship fuses technology, design, marketing, and finance in pursuit of innovation with a global impact.

Butler went to San Jose State University as an undergraduate majoring in Business with a concentration in Management Information Systems and obtained his teaching credential at Patten University. He’ll be finishing his Master of Business Administration degree in 2024 from Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University. He still considers himself an entrepreneur, but he gets the best of both worlds of guiding the younger generation while being able to re-enter the industry at any time.

Outside of the classroom, Butler is a family man. Having a wife, children and siblings, he values family a lot. He supports his youngest child in their endeavor in STEM programs (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). What he likes to do for fun is indulge in a multitude of sports, whether that be basketball or football.  

Many students can stand to learn the minds of an entrepreneur to achieve success in their daily lives, even outside of business-related careers. Butler knows this very well, allowing students to learn attributes of entrepreneurship mainly through the “Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship” or NFTE for short. NFTE is an organization based in New York that provides curriculum, activities, and experiences that prepare middle schoolers through college-level students to become entrepreneurs.

Butler’s love for Entrepreneurship stems from his desire to give students the chance to succeed in any career they choose to pursue, given that he used to be in the technology industry (enterprise software, Internet infrastructure, and database technology). This desire of his has given three students of his in the past to win the NFTE’s western region youth entrepreneurship challenge. Butler knows that entrepreneurship is very difficult but rewarding. Having to commit to researching, developing, testing, and adjusting to increase the chance of success while reducing risk. 

With the nature of the classes Butler teaches, some say the classes are difficult to keep up with. Butler thinks this is because, “It mimics the world of work in many ways, working on more than one project at a time, externally driven deadlines and applying interdisciplinary knowledge and skills developed in core classes. It takes determination and grit to persevere and students consistently report at the end of the school year having gained useful skills and grown significantly. Being different and doing something different brings a challenge,”.

Butler has also taught other classes in the past. Those are the AVID and Yearbook elective classes. In particular, he holds the AVID class in high regard due to seeing them grow up and still keeping in touch with them from time to time even during COVID-19 for virtual coffee. He considers the Yearbook elective to be one of the hardest classes to teach as 90% of the work was done by 10% of students to deliver it on time. Butler considers Silver Creek students and Alumni overall with high regard who are currently pursuing extraordinary goals such as designers, engineers, medical professionals and more. 

When asked, “What do you want to be remembered for?” Butler responded with, “Connecting students with opportunity. Providing exposure to a variety of experiences that open their mind to possibilities beyond what they imagined,”.