No sooner had I sent out my newsletter on Friday evening than I learned that I had been successful in getting an unconditional offer to study the Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) course at a Scottish university to become a Scottish Gaelic medium primary school teacher. I have as yet to formally accept the place, as I am also doing an interview in just over a week's time with another institution offering the same course, so I will await the outcome of that before doing so.
I have had a few folk ask why I am "giving up a perfectly good career in genealogy?! There are a few responses to that, so here we go!
First up, I won't be giving up genealogy completely - I will simply be shifting the balance of my workload, albeit in quite a large way. If I am successful, I will of course be working full-time after the course as a teacher, at least for my first year (probationary year), but there are some aspects of my genealogy work that I will still keep my hand in with. For example, I enjoy doing talks, so will likely keep the monthly Scottish GENES Webinars going, and possibly some in-person talks, as well as the Pharos courses that I teach, which are equally fun, as well as writng occasional genealogy articles. The biggest area by far that will be impacted is client work, as I simply won't be able to do that during school hours. I will likely cease doing this from August of this year, after twenty years of helping folk out, and that will certainly be missed.
Secondly, this won't be the first time that I change career. I initially trained for two years to become a graphic designer in Belfast, before changing tack to work in broadcast television, which I did for twelve years. In 2006 I decided to leave the broadcasting world, as I felt I had accomplished the things I wished to achieve. By this time I had already been researching my own family history for six years, and felt that this was an area worthy of exploration as a career. I actually asked for voluntary redundancy to do so, at which point a few folk asked me "why are you giving up a perfectly good career in television"?!
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I have spent twenty years working full-time as a genealogist, and indeed, when I started, I think I was one of the youngest in the country to do so! Many genealogists in the field actually have other jobs, or have retired, with the genealogy work a part-time concern. As a full-time genealogist, I have been earning about just over half what I previously earned at the BBC, and it has been quite a job to keep juggling how the income comes in as a self-employed researcher, writer and tutor. I certainly haven't been in it for the money, but I have been fortunate to succeed at it, and to raise a family on the proceeds. I have been equally fortunate to have had the chance to be able to use skills developed from my previous careers in design and television to good effect, such as writing and researching, not to mention editing the APG's monthly newsletter for four years. Presenting talks was something of a new skill to be learned (I used to hide behind a camera for a reason!), but I have had the great fortune to speak around the world at various conferences, at land, at sea, and online - it's been a lot of fun!
But thirdly, the real reason why I am moving on to a new challenge is my absolute love for the Gaelic language in Scotland, the country's oldest indigenous language, spoken here since the 5th century at least, and likely a few centuries earlier. Gaelic has been discriminated against for centuries, but is now thankfully undergoing something of a revival, thanks to the efforts since devolution of successive Scottish governments that have actually given a damn about it. As an adult learner of the language for some thirty years, and now with a degree of fluency, it is time to put these skills to good use, and to help the next generation to gain more confidence and opportunity in using their own native tongue. We can now teach kids through the medium of Gaelic at school, Scotland is no longer a country that beats the Gaelic language out of children at school.
Through the course that I am hoping to do, I will actually be qualified to teach the Scottish primary school curriculum both through Gaelic and English, so can turn my hand to both sectors. Gaelic education is offered in many different ways, with fully bilingual children produced as a result no matter which route they take, which umpteen number of studies have shown can be so beneficial in so many ways when considering other learning opportunities afterwards, and of course, in revitalising the Gaelic language itself. And there are so many skills I have learned from my previous careers in design, television production, research, writing, and presentation, that can help me with this next phase of my life, just as previous skills have helped me in my genealogical work. There are many challenges within the teaching field itself, but I am up for the challenge.
I have just over another decade ahead of me before I have to think about retiring, and this will be the ultimate challenge for me, and I simply cannot wait to get stuck in. And when retirement eventually comes... well, I still have half a lifetime of accrued genealogical skills to put to good use again (assuming AI hasn't abolished the role of genealogist by then!), and who knows, I may even finish the Strathclyde masters course for the craic at that point!
Fortune favours the bold, and as my mum always used to say, "God loves a trier".
Onwards and upwards...!
Chris
Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.
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