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Leah and Izzy welcome Mr. Koppel, an alumni of Torrance Pines High School, to their podcast. Mr. Koppel talks about his career path, his passion for education, and the challenges of incorporating new technology in schools. He also discusses the transition from middle school to high school and the emphasis on soft skills at Torrey Pines. They also mention various extracurricular activities and clubs available at the school. Finally, they end with a lighthearted discussion about pineapple on pizza. Have you met an alumni who is leaving their own school? We are pleased to welcome you all to our program. In this class, we will be sharing with you the story of the past and the future of our university. My name is Leah, I am a 7th grader at UTMS and also the founder of the UTMS Project. I have my photo, you can see it. Hi everyone, I am Izzy, a fellow 8th grader in UTMS and co-host of the Project Club. I am a Science Club founder and a student general of UTMS as a 7th grader. Nice to meet you, Mr. Koppel. Nice to meet you both. Alright, Mr. Koppel, from the Torrance Pines High School website... Oh, my bad. Alright, Mr. Koppel, from the Torrance Pines High School website, we gathered that you have been associated with Torrance Pines for a while, starting as a high school student, then becoming a principal. Would you like to give us a rundown of your career? Sure, yeah, I started at Torrance Pines High School in 1982, graduated from there in 1986, went on to college after that where I majored in film and television, as a matter of fact, and then worked in the movie industry for a couple of years before getting my teaching credential in English, and then I taught film and television for about 10 years at Orange Glen High School up in Escondido, and then I was lucky enough to get hired as an assistant principal at Torrance Pines High School. Spent a year in the Grossmont District working in their CTE department before interviewing for the principal at Torrance Pines High School, where I've been now, this is my eighth year. It was, you're right, it was very sick. It was just sort of luck, to be honest. I was working in another school district, and I had, when I originally applied to be an assistant principal at Torrey, it just happened to be the job that was open, and so I applied and got it, and then when I came back as principal, I had experience at the site, but I can tell you it's pretty strange to be principal of a school you went to. It's a very unusual experience. Very interesting. Did you ever consider any other careers? I've considered many other careers. I wanted to be a screenwriter for a long time, and I wrote several screenplays. I considered being a film editor and a cinematographer for a little while, but the film industry is a really tricky business, and I had some amazing teachers growing up and really wanted to fill the gap as I watched them retire and loved education, so I went and got my credential and my master's and decided to go into teaching, but I still dabble in writing, in fact, and I've got a podcast of my own as well. Well, I'm a musician. I play drums in a local cover band, so I've got some buddies I play music with, which is great. I had a band for a long time all through college, so it's fun to do that again. I play a little golf with my family. I like to travel very much, and I'm a big reader, and I'm writing a book. The best part of my job is probably graduation day. I love graduation day. I love seeing the smiles on all the kids' faces. It's just a really, really special day to see those four years and really the 12 or 13 years of education that they've gone through and the public world come to an end and just that incredible celebration and satisfaction on their faces. The most challenging year or the most challenging thing? I'm sorry. The most challenging thing in my job. The most challenging thing in my job is probably all of the many new things the world likes to throw at us, like cell phones and social media and e-bikes and all of these things that we didn't create, we didn't ask for, but schools are being asked to figure out how to manage with our students. So if we could focus on education, it would be a heck of a lot easier, but the world likes to keep throwing us new technology that we have to figure out how to help our kids understand. Yeah, that transition from middle school to high school is one of the biggest transitions a student will go through in their academic career. It's a very, very different world than high school. In middle school, you've got two years, so the age difference isn't as big. At high school, there's a four-year difference, so you go from being a 14-year-old walking on campus with your lunchbox and you get passed by a guy who's an 18-year-old adult with a full beard who just got off his night shift. So it's a different world when you get to high school for sure. But it's a great transition. It's really exciting. Academically, I think it's pretty similar, especially in ninth grade. We are really focused on making sure our ninth graders have a soft landing when they get to high school. You've already been experienced with going to multiple teachers and multiple classes, so that part won't be new. The rigor is something you'd be used to. It's just normal grade-level advancement. But then you've got more opportunities at the high school, because especially at Torrey and CCA here locally, you've got a wide range of classes to choose from. So it's great because you really get to expand and try things and experiment a little bit and really find out who you are. As far as preparing students for college goes, is there any enhanced emphasis on soft skills, for example, management, leadership, communication skills, and emotional intelligence? That's a great question. We focus a lot at Torrey Pines on what some call soft skills. We'll call it professional skills or even transferable skills. So they're all things that you need regardless of what you're going to do later in life, whether it's run your own home, run your own business, work for somebody else. You need to know how to make eye contact and shake hands and make a phone call and write a resume and do all those things that help keep you out there in the world connecting with people. And we're fortunate enough to have eight different CTE pathways to integrate that within the classes. But all of our teachers are focused on building people, not transcripts. So we really try to get those skills through to the students regardless of what class they're in so they're prepared not just for the next eight years of their life, but for the next 80 years of their life. What are some extracurriculars or fun programs available at Torrey Pines? I'm interested in science and robotics, and I would love to learn more about it in high school. Well, if you're interested in robotics, we have the Millennium Falcons, a great robotics program, very competitive. A bunch of dedicated students there working really, really hard, and they've had great success. We've got Science Olympiad. We've got lots of science clubs. And as you probably know, we've got 28 varsity teams who are very successful in athletics, about 150 different clubs for you to be a part of. We've got PALS and ASB. Really, if there's something you're interested in, Torrey Pines has it. That's pretty cool. What are some clubs available at Torrey Pines out of the 150 clubs? Oh, gosh. Let's see. The clubs, we've got math clubs. We've got science clubs. We've got things like Torrey Pines Players, our drama club, our music program. We've got a sailing club, which I find amazing. I don't know where they sail, but I guess we are in San Diego, so it works out. But sometimes they bring their boat to club day. It's pretty funny. We've got a barbecue club. We've got an auto tech club. And what's nice about Torrey is if there isn't a club that you want, you can start your own club. I would love to start a chicken nuggets club. Then come to Torrey, and by all means, start a chicken nuggets club. Just don't forget to invite me to the meetings. Funky. Lastly, a million-dollar question. Do you put pineapple on your pizza? No, that's illegal in my house. No, that's not true. My wife loves that, and my son loves it, but it's terrible. It shouldn't be done. It's wrong. Oh, my. Pizza makes my heart. I'm sorry. Heartbroken. Well, thank you, Mr. Koppel, for joining us today. It was a pleasure to get to know you. Thank you, everyone, for listening to our first podcast of the year. And thank you to the members of the podcast club who worked on the script. Also, stay tuned for more podcasts from our club. If you want to develop personal and professional skills like marketing, speaking, leadership, editing, and scripting, join our club. Thank you so much for listening. Bye-bye.