Person

fl. 1960s- Gene Adams was an advisor in museums education and believed in developing education based on objects in London's museums and historic houses and to continue to promote free access to London museums. In the 1950s Adams worked part time at the Geffrye Museum in Shoreditch, before becoming a curator at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. In 1962-1963 she trained as a teacher at the Institute of Education and afterwards taught art at various London secondary schools including the Battersea County Comprehensive. In 1967 she was seconded to work in the art room of the Geffrye Museum and around 1970 was appointed a full time teacher at the museum in charge of the art room where she developed education activities based closely on the museum's objects and the history of the local area. While working at the Geffrye Museum, Adams developed activities based around an educational trail looking at the history and architecture of the Spitalfields area. Concerned about the preservation of the 18th century architecture of the areas, Adams helped form the Save our Spitalfields group who created an independent exhibition in 1979 promoting the Spitalfields area and highlighting the architecture which was at risk. In 1975 Gene Adams became the Art and Museum Education Advisory Teacher under the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) where she developed educational activities relating to museums and galleries, including school visits, holiday activities, in-services training courses for ILEA teachers, and general information leaflets for teachers on museums education. In 1978 she became the ILEA Museum Education Advisor. In the last years of ILEA she also sat on the advisory committees of the Geffrye and Horniman Museums. When ILEA/GLC was abolished in 1990 there was no place for her role in the new London authorities and she became a freelance museums education advisor. She remained on the advisory committees for the Horniman and Geffrye Museums help with their transference into independent charitable trusts. Adams helped develop education service in several museums, wrote a series of articles for 'Questions' magazine on museums, and also ran a course for staff at the Museum Department of Kraftangan, a Malaysia crafts organisation, to help them establish and education service. She also continued to promote the conservation of historic buildings. As well as her career in museum education, Gene Adams was also actively opposed corporal punishment in schools. She was a member of the National Council for Civil Liberties, her experiences as a school teacher led her to form, in 1968, an anti-corporal punishment pressure group, known as the Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment (STOPP). She also served on the NCCL Executive and its Children's Rights Committee for several years. In 1973 Gene Adams resigned from the STOPP Committee. museums education adviser GB/366/1461 14/09/2009 Mkklibyz 14/09/2009 Mkklibyz Adams; Gene (fl. 1960s-); museums education adviser Adams Gene Female International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) 2nd edition - ICA 2004 ISBN 2-9521932-2-3 National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997 Yes 92a2d986-2c9d-4614-8109-cbca22713530