Johnson State College is known for creating educators who then work within the local communities. There’s a nostalgia to the image of a young woman (74 percent of our teachers are female according to the National Center for Education Statistics) spending day after day tenderly educating and building moral character in rural American youths.

Paul Major, a student taking only one class at JSC, Spanish, offers a different perspective on what a teacher is and to whom he offers guidance. The 55-year old lives in Brownington, Vt., and takes a day and a half a week off from work to come and hablar espanol to fill a continuing education credit for his instructor certification.

The other work days of the week, he said, he spends with his own students at the Northern State Correctional Facility (NSCF) in Newport – a job he takes very seriously.

“The attainment of skills by these people with problems is a key to succeeding as productive citizens,” he said about the young people he comes in contact with at the jail. “Some have no skills and little to no education.”

According to the Vermont Department of Corrections, any inmate younger than 23 without a high school diploma is automatically enrolled in the Community High School of Vermont, the program that Major’s job falls under. In a classroom setting at the “campus site” at NSCF, he is one of several teachers who dedicates his life to offering an education to convicts.

Originally, he applied at the facility for an officer position at his neighbor’s suggestion. After several years, an opportunity to utilize his teacher certification came up and he transferred to Educati on at the facility. He soon knew this was his life calling.

As an educator, he said he respects his pupils as human beings and works hard to create a comfortable atmosphere for them to open up, relate to him, and learn.

Thus comes the Spanish class. He said that a large percentage of the people he works with at the jail are from out of state and many speak Spanish as a first language. He said he hopes that learning the language and some of the culture will help him connect where there may be a social barrier.

“Familiarity will encourage participation,” he said.

Participation is especially important to Major, who admitted he teaches subjects that students –in jail and out of jail- don’t normally show much enthusiasm for. History and literature fall on the bottom of the list compared to computers and other vocational skills. The exception is his poetry class, where students incorporate their social culture and do “rap-poetry” sessions.

Even though teaching can be tough, he never gives up on any of his learners, he said, and what had started as a regular job has turned into a passion.

“They are no different than you and me,” Major said. “They’ve just got problems. I can only hope that what I teach them gets them to think and maybe will help them change their lives.”