Grants Pass High School (GPHS) has a diverse array of characters on its staff. Some of the topics that teachers cover can be taught differently, depending on the class content. For example, the way Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is taught in a science classroom is extremely different from the way it is taught in history. Different classes vary greatly from each other, but do the teachers also act differently? How do different teachers respond to the same, open-ended question? The Scroll asked 10 teachers the same question: What are the stars like?

Other teachers spoke of the star’s beauty. Both Mr. Zaina and Mr. Wade spoke of the shiny and bright nature of stars: “Shiny and bright points of light, occasionally twinkling.” While not as poetic as the previous teachers, still a beautiful interpretation of the stars in the sky. Surprisingly, a science substitute teacher (Mr. Jackson) gave both a poetic and scientific definition to the stars. His immediate response to the question was: “Stars are like diamonds strewn across a black blanket. Hey, that’s from a song.” He then spent a few minutes researching the song he was talking about (for those wondering, the song is “I Wish You Were Here" by Incubus, and the lyric is “The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket”). After a few minutes, he came back to give a more scientific answer. “I should give you a real answer,” he said. “Hundreds of billions and trillions, more than that, balls of gas fusing hydrogen releasing energy.” He continued to ramble on about the complexity of stars and how many there might be in the universe (he could not find a number he liked).

Asking teachers about the stars gets a wide range of responses. Some were poetic, others were whimsical, and some were just cold facts. The different personalities that the teachers of GPHS have is what makes the school so special.