Describing Steve Temple as a teacher is like asking the question, “What characteristics makes a teacher the best teacher?”

Mr. Temple teaches in a project based style. He believes that learning from a textbook doesn’t benefit the student because there isn’t a textbook of life. He also has a vast amount of knowledge in physics, computer science, politics, literature, and the outdoors.

Mr. Temple teaches the Academy of Physics and Technology Program (APT) and Media Academy. If you have seen Mr. Holt, a colleague and good friend of Mr. Temple, a big, grumpy, old man, Mr. Temple looks the same but he’s younger, smaller, cheerful, and has no beard.

“Contrary to popular belief, Mr. Temple is actually a human,” said Mr. Holt. The reason why Mr. Holt says this is because the amount of knowledge he has. Mr. Holt has been close with Mr. Temple and believes that he is “the teacher of the universe.” He has acknowledged the way he teaches and has seen that it’s very helpful to his students.

“Mr. Temple is passionate about his profession.”

Also, Mr. Temple has developed an educational tool for teachers to teach physics. It’s called Tychos. He has used it in his APT classes. Most of his students respect him and enjoy his teaching style. San Rafael High School Junior, Walker Burdick says, “I enjoy how he uses Tychos in class.”

Not only do Mr. Holt and Mr. Temple’s students see his passion for his work, but so do his close friends, David Anderman and Randy Puro. Anderman stated, “He’s one of the few people, I know, who really enjoys his profession.” Puro has seen this too when Mr. Temple went off on camping trips in Canada, “He’s also been a natural educator.” According to Anderman, he is really eager to share his knowledge with others.

Mr. Temple was born in Australia. He moved to different states but ended up staying in Albuquerque, New Mexico, meeting his closest friends in middle school, Anderman and Puro. He enjoyed the outdoors, and skiing. He also played computer games and learned to program computers with them. In high school, he skied a lot.

Not only did Mr. Temple enjoy skiing in his high school years, Anderman stated, he was a great soccer player and studied various martial arts. One summer, he traveled to Canada to work as a camp counselor and lead canoe trips.

After high school, Mr. Temple moved to Colorado to get his bachelor’s degree at University of Colorado, Boulder. He studied physics and the history of science, which was more philosophical investigation. He studied how science developed and how it evolved as a cultural creation. “It was absolutely fascinating, I loved it.”

After graduation, he decided to become a professor at a university and went to get his teaching credentials. However, once he had his credentials, there weren’t many teaching positions. He did a little bit of substitute teaching. He enjoyed that and wanted to more of it. Unfortunately, he had a software job at the time. He had to choose between the two. Mr. Temple wanted to do both but knew he couldn’t. He dropped his software job and pursued his teaching career.

Mr. Temple’s first job at SRHS was a grant funded, digital, high school coordinator for half a year. He requested that the school to hire him as a teacher after the grant was done and the school did. The first couple of classes he taught were physics, computer programming, and algebra. He also taught one health ed class in his first two years.

Around 2003, Ms. Thurston contacted Mr. Temple and asked if he wanted to teach in Media Academy. He accepted the offer. Also, Ms. Coltman, the principal at the time, asked Mr. Temple to help create an engineering program. This program soon came to be called Physics Academy. In 2014, Mr. Temple was named the teacher of the year in Marin County.

Recently, Mr. Temple is focusing on improving his teaching. He’s open to suggestions on different ways he could teach to his classes. Soon, his role will change in the APT program since his colleague, Mr. Holt, will retire from the program at the end of 2019.

Meanwhile outside of school, he still tries to travel around whenever he can. Mr. Temple is trying to learn Spanish and is still actively doing so. Finally, he rock climbs too. Mr. Temple is optimistic about the future of his career and the APT program.