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Gene Adams was a teacher who became a Museums Education Advisor. Adams received a BA in Fine Arts (Hons) from the University of Natal in South Africa in 1953. Soon after graduating she travelled to London and from 1956 to 1957 was employed as Assistant Curator at the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow. During her return to South Africa from late 1957 she worked at temporary experimental museum educational projects at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town. She moved to London permanently in May 1959 to take up part time educational work at the Geffrye Museum.
After qualifying as a teacher in 1963 at the Institute of Education, Gene Adams taught at various London schools as an art teacher. In 1970-1974 Adams was seconded to the Geffrye Museum as a part time teacher and became the Teacher in Charge of the Art Room. After a series of activities at the Geffrye in 1974 looking at the history and architecture of the Spitalfields area, Adams helped formed the 'Save our Spitalfields' group who created an independent exhibition in 1979 promoting the Spitalfields area and highlighting the architecture which was at risk of demolition. The exhibition later toured museums in the south east.
In 1975 Gene Adams was appointed the Art and Museum Education Advisory Teacher at the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). Here she developed educational activities in museums and art galleries, including school visits, holiday activities, in-services training courses for ILEA teachers, and general information leaflets for teachers on museums education mostly based at the historic houses of the Greater London Council (GLC). In 1978 she became the ILEA Museum Education Advisor.
When the ILEA 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 was also a member of the education committee of Museum of Moving Image (MOMI), (later the NFT/MOMI education committee/South Bank Education Committee.) Adams also wrote articles on museums education for 'Questions' magazine, and ran a course for staff at the Museum Department of Kraftangan, a Malaysia crafts organisation, to help them establish an education service.
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 and in 1968 formed 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.