Interview with Su Matthan, Facebook friend and Home Educator

Since I’m not feeling up to much today, here’s another gob-smackin’, lip-glossin’, toe-curlin’ reader interview!!!  This time it’s with Facebook friend and fellow Home-Educator Su Matthan.

Lizardyoga:   So, how would you describe yourself/ what’s important to you?

    I would use these words: Consciously creative cosmic conduit.

People, relationships, spirituality, creativity.

    OK the words ‘cosmic’ and ‘spirituality’ leap out at me. Care to elaborate?

     I see myself as belonging to the universe in the greatest sense, as opposed to a country, piece of land or state.  I also see myself as a spiritual being, not just a body.

  I feel I’m connected to the past, present and future, through heritage, history and the generations.

    Sounds good to me.  Do you have any kind of spiritual practice – yoga, meditation etc?

    Praying and meditating on the wisdom of the Bible: I see meditation (for myself) as wanting to being filled with wisdom and knowledge.

    Would you describe yourself as a Christian? What would you say your faith has done for you?

    Yes, I am definitely a follower of one carpenter from Nazareth!  I’d probably be dead if I didn’t have my faith: it has changed me as a person, shaped me, sharpened me and softened me.

Lizardyoga:  I don’t want to be too personal so I’ll leave it up to you if you want to say any more about that.  Do you belong to a church?

    I have fellowship but I have changed my position from feeling I had to be a signed up member to a physical church.  I no longer do, and my faith family is widely spread now, whereas it used to be much more local.  I do still hold the position where I need to be in connection with a faith family, yes.

    I think it’s good to be in touch with others spiritually who are treading the same path as you are.  What or who else is important in your life?

    Creativity, being a wife and parent, my work. I am rubbish at housework!

    Life’s too short for housework!  Can you tell me about your family/friends?

    We’re a close family of just three people: Chris (we’ve been a couple since 1986, married in 1992) and our only child, Asha (15), jointly home educated.

I am the eldest of 4 children, and I’m close to my sister and her three children and one brother and his partner.
I don’t have an active relationship with my parents.  My dad is South Indian, from Kerala, and my mum is Finnish.  They live in Northern Finland.
My closest friend lives in the same county although we met a long time ago, in 1985, while studying A levels together. We’ve always stayed in touch.
I have developed close and meaningful friendships with people I met through Home Ed circles, we have met in real life and stayed in touch.
I have other friendships through work, local volunteering activities and the village in which I live. I am also happily in contact with girls I went to school with (in India).

    So you went to school in India –  was that in Kerala?  And then what decided you to Home Educate?

    I was born in Shrewsbury and moved to India at age of two.  I lived there until I was 16, first in Madras (Chennai) and then Bangalore.

We enjoyed watching our daughter grow and thrive so it was a natural progression for us to Home Educate.  Additionally, both of us had worked as teachers before she was born, so that we understood the system from within, and decided that it wasn’t for us. We are both still teaching in the system, but in non-standard settings.

    That’s really interesting. I was a teacher too and failed horribly at it – not because I can’t teach but because I couldn’t handle keeping children in order and enforcing a lot of pointless rules.  How old is your daughter now?

    She’s 15, will be 16 this summer.

    Any thoughts on Home Education that you’d like to pass on? What do you think is good about it?

Su:             It makes you overcome your own issues. I think that’s one of the reasons parents think they can’t Home Educate, because they are impatient or selfish or whatever. But the best way of relating to your child is to deal with your own challenges, honestly.  If you are ready to face yourself through the journey of parenting, I think you can face anything. So, I think Home Education is the best therapy a parent can take on.  It’s a daring route.  For us, HE has been a challenging journey. We’ve all changed so much from how we thought it was going to be at the beginning: it teaches you to adapt to life and makes you resilient and strong as a family unit.

Home Education can empower you to make choices, and to reject the things that are not important to you.
I’d urge all loving parents to at least consider the HE lifestyle.  It could change them!

   Brilliant, thanks so much Su for your interesting comments – and good luck with the rest of your Home Ed journey.

If you would like to be interviewed for this blog, please drop me a line via the comments box!

Kirk out