As the 2023–2024 school year begins, many new teachers have arrived on campus and are now joining the supportive community here at Arcadia High School (AHS). This year, the Careers and Technology Education department welcomes Mr. David Trent with his unmatched enthusiasm and spirit of exploration.                                                                     

Mr. Trent grew up in Hardesty, a small rural town located in Oklahoma with a population of 205. He graduated from Hardesty High School in 1992 and went to Oklahoma Panhandle State University. Growing up in such a remote environment, Mr. Trent never had opportunities at his school like those offered here at AHS. 

As he put it, “The school I went to didn’t have any [STEM] electives. If you asked me when I was a senior ‘what is an engineer,’ I would have had no clue!”

Due to the lack of STEM electives, Mr. Trent’s pathway to becoming an engineering teacher was an unusual one. 

As he recalled, “I went to college for journalism originally, and I took a couple years off from college. I didn’t graduate right away, and when I went back, the journalism degree was no longer offered. So I had to change my degree. This was like the early 90s, and I said, “Well, I like computers. They’re really cool.” And the pathway to engineering just kind of led from there.”

After Mr. Trent graduated with his degree in computer science, he never considered a career in education until he worked for a few years. According to him, “I worked in the business sector for several years and I didn’t really like my job. I didn’t really enjoy the whole office aspect and sitting in a cubicle. And it was high stress, high pressure, not very satisfying. I didn’t feel like I was doing much other than just pushing buttons. At the time, it was important to me to leave a legacy behind. Because my wife was a teacher, my mother was a teacher, and my mother-in-law was a teacher, and they really enjoyed their job. I thought, that’s great. I would love that. I’m interested in that.”

A big reason why Mr. Trent chose to come to AHS was because of a childhood dream.

“Since I was about 17, my life, literally my lifelong goal has been to move to California. It’s been my dream. I really like Southern California, and the whole of San Gabriel Valley is really nice. Just exactly my cup of tea. Arcadia just has such a reputation for being an excellent school with having high achieving students and having supportive staff and having all these wonderful attributes that I’m interested in.”

Previously, Mr. Trent taught engineering classes at Western Heights Middle School in Hagerstown, Maryland and Palmdale Aerospace Academy in Palmdale, California. He also taught history classes at those schools. As he explained, “I got my history certification, [but] I have absolutely no formal background in history. Zero. I took no history classes in college. But in Oklahoma, if you are able to pass a test called the OSAT, the Oklahoma Subject Area Test, you can teach that subject. I’m very interested in history. And I read a lot of history on the side just for pleasure. So I knew enough about it that I was considered to be expert enough to pass the test and certified to teach history.” 

In the classroom, Mr. Trent focuses on providing his students with hands-on learning experiences. In his own words, “We’re not afraid to fail. They say that Thomas Edison failed a thousand times on creating the light bulb filament. But we don’t look at his failures and define him by his failures, we look at his success and all those failures led to the success. So with a lot of the hands-on teaching we do here, we celebrate success but we also learn from failure.”

In addition to helping students see science happening before their eyes, Mr. Trent also places a heavy focus on collaboration. In Engineering Design and Development, for example, “We have breakout groups working on different aspects of an overarching team project. You’ll have a group of two or three that have a drill in their hand and they’re trying to fabricate something out of boards. You’ll have a group of one or two and they’re on the computer, they’ll be doing CAD. And so the team works great because everybody gets to pick something that they’re passionate about and be part of something that their skill set is good for. Everyone pulls together. Everyone is very supportive. And I couldn’t be happier with them.”

Outside the classroom, Mr. Trent has a plethora of interesting hobbies as well. As he describes it, “I’m always interested in just a multitude of things. For a while it was gardening and board games and I like horror movies and I like traveling. I like computer programming. It’s fun. I like reading, learning. I just have so many passions that I want to pursue, I just don’t have enough time to do all the things I’d like to do, but constantly feel like I’m being pulled in different directions for my limited time for entertainment, but there’s never a bored moment with me, there’s always something I can find fascinating that I’m interested in doing.”

When asked about the biggest goal Mr. Trent wanted to accomplish here at AHS, he replied that he wanted “to start a cyber security class here. Students would be hacking virtual machines, cracking virtual passwords, breaking into personal email accounts so we can learn the ethics of [cyberattacks] and learn how to prevent it and how to patch those things up.” 

When asked about one general piece of advice he would give to students, Mr. Trent’s reply was simple yet powerfully motivating.

“You get one go on this merry-go-round. Life is so short. Just enjoy every moment. Develop yourself now while you’re young, because if you wait until you’re older, you’re just missing out on opportunities.”

With such an optimistic and enthusiastic teacher joining our community here at AHS, the future students are lucky to have Mr. Trent as their teacher for engineering and related classes. Once again, the AHS community extends its welcome to Mr. Trent. And we are excited by the positive impact he will leave behind.