The Common Worker

by Charissa Nasrallah   

Every ecologist understands that the same things responsible for making the animals sick will most likely be the same sort of things that will cause similar illnesses in the our own species.  So my concern about the water quality in the park was shared by many of my coworkers in the Animal Forest.  We commonly held routine venting sessions when we were doing our grunt work, well away from the ears of upper management.  There is a comradeship among the common workers that I was proud to be a part of. 

Common workers are the people who do most of the actual work in the world, whether it’s teaching, constructing, cleaning, protecting, feeding or nursing society.  Commonly, common workers make below average salaries and suffer the most on job injuries.  To this day I have never been anything but a common worker, with very little desire to be anything more.

Usually common workers have a skill, or skills, they are employed to perform.  The people I worked with all had their special trades taking care of the park, its animals and its visitors.  Idealistically, people should strive to use their talents to the best of their abilities and work in positions which allow them to do so.  This is what guided me in my decision to become an educator. 

I had a natural gift for teaching.  The reason for this is because I was fortunate enough to be exposed to good teachers through out my life.  At times I had difficult learning new lessons, and many of my previous teachers had to teach me through alternative methods.  But for this reason, I grew up with a solid foundation of understanding how to present things to other people who might be confused.

The teachers and students who attended my programs at the park were always impressed by my enthusiasm about the subject matter.  Each day at work I had the chance to influence others to respect nature and join the struggle to conserve the wilderness.

Many times I questioned whether or not I knew enough to preach my ecologically oriented view of the world to the people who attended my programs, but I did it anyway.  My father warned me against being a zealot, and I knew there were times when I got carried away.  So I tried to only teach the things that had been scientifically proven and social accepted during my programs.

I told my students not to litter and to pick up litter, for everything disposed of on the ground gets washed into the water and causes problems to the wildlife.  I told my students not to feed wild animals, because they could be bitten.  I told my students to recycle so we could quit trashing the country and conserve some space for the wilderness.

But as time went on, I found myself wanting to teach some other lessons, some assumptions about the world I had arrived at in the pursuit of my own, limited education.  I told my students they should be concerned less with what they owned, and more with what they did during their lives.  And then I told my students other things that were a bit more controversial at the time.

I taught about the evolution of species, and it never went over well with the Baptists.  I realize I was not present during the beginning of time, and all people can do is theorize about the first days of existence, but I had my beliefs and I shared them with others who were either willing to listen or put into the situation where they had to.  I also talked about how I feared the human race had an overpopulation problem, since I was increasing concerned with our rate of development.  I told many of my students to consider this when planning their futures and if they wanted a lot of children to become a teacher.  Then I’d talked about how wolves all work together to raise the cubs.

I often speculated that our society should be structured in a fashion that required a little more teamwork.  I believe this world is a wonderful place, with wonderful people, and many, many wonderful things, but there are problems the human race should deal with first before deciding to pawn it off on another generation.  There are plenty of bird species that stop reproducing if there is a shortage of food, or if their niche is polluted to the point where it is unhealthy.  I can’t help but feel the human race, as a whole, would really benefit if they took it upon themselves to reduce their reproduction rate, at least until we were able to colonize another planet.  Many people I worked with through the years did not necessarily have the same views as me, and I was deemed a rebel for speaking out about these issues.

I was only a common worker, and I definitely knew I did not have the all answers.  But if someone did have a question, I tried my best to answer it.  However, sometimes my honest responses were not always what people wanted to hear.

sustainable living - natural living - eco living - earth friendly  - ecological - green living

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