Regarding me, Psyguy, and the recent ME posts

[expatteacher99]

I’m not going to spend my time debating Psyguy every time the ME comes up. If you've read the recent "Hi, I am new to ISR" thread you would understand why. What I AM going to do is continue to provide teachers with information based on my personal experiences in the ME. People deserve to hear different perspectives on a region – not just the perspective of someone who despises a certain region for whatever reason. I'm not the kind of person who would invalidate a person's own experiences in a place. If Psyguy had a bad experience, then he had a bad experience, and he is allowed to share that. What I don't think he has the right to do (but does anyway) is to imply that other people's experiences and opinions don't matter because they conflict with his.

Teachers are intelligent and can make smart decisions. They can choose:

1. To believe to a person who admitted that he only spent 6 weeks in Egypt before running away. Perhaps he does not have the personality or social skills to deal with change and new cultures. Perhaps the culture shock was too much for him to handle. Perhaps he didn’t have the skills to get hired at a good school and therefore truly did have an awful experience at a terrible school that didn’t make life easy for teachers. We don’t know , and will probably never know. What we do know from his posts on this forum is that based on one tiny 6 week experience in ONE country in the Middle East, he has declared the entire region to be a “craphole.â€

[gus]

Thank you for this post. I refuse to debase Psyguy on this. 10 years in three countries in the ME and have enjoyed every year, every country, every school, every experience...the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I am leaving the ME at the end of this year and while excited about a new region and new opportunities, I will be sad to go and will miss many things about here.

I feel sorry for people who were steered away from this region b/c of posts on this forum where opinions have expressed like facts and pictures have been painted that do not reflect everyone's reality!

[pacificsurf619]

If people dismiss the ME simply because of one ISR forum poster, they have bigger problems

[wntriscoming]

And really...if readers are so swayed by one person's opinion, then just see it as fate: the ME is better off without THEM in it. :shock:

I'm a firm believer that there are amazing reasons to work in each area in the world, and I also believe you take your happiness with you.