Eileen Adams: Agent of Change

What are ways of bringing about change in educators' attitudes and professional practice? This is one of the most important areas of policy-making in the twenty-first century. In this book a highly effective innovator explains her thinking and methods in relation to art, design and environmental education. Eileen Adams has wide experience in what has recently been identified as 'cultural leadership'. Unusually, her work as a teacher, lecturer, researcher, writer, examiner and consultant covers all levels of formal education, as well as the broader, more diffuse experience of pressure groups such as the highly successful Campaign for Drawing. Many of Eileen's initiatives have resulted in changes in government thinking at local and national levels, and development in educators' practice both in the UK and internationally. Eileen Adams views visual education as an essential part of general education. In education through art, she says: 'making is central but art and design are also about making sense, making meaning and making things happen'. In this critical biography she tells the story of six years as a classroom teacher and 40 years as a researcher, innovator and campaigner.She played a key role in a series of influential projects: Front Door; Art and the Built Environment; and Learning through Landscapes.
Most recently she was director of Power Drawing, the educational arm of The Campaign for Drawing. She has used strategies familiar in action research to prompt change in educational practice and sees teachers as significant players in curriculum development. In this book she gives a frank account of successes and failures, and concludes by putting forward ten policy recommendations which are essential reading for politicians, school governors, headteachers, researchers, lecturers and - most important of all - teachers and student teachers. Eileen Adams is a freelance consultant with broad experience as a teacher, teacher educator, researcher, consultant, examiner and writer. Her training at Trent Park College of Education with a first degree in art and education from London University and her MA in design education at the RCA reflected a broad interest in visual education. She has taught at all levels, and served as an external examiner in higher education and as Deputy Chief Examiner in Art/Design for the International Baccalaureate.She has supported the work of educators in a variety of settings, in schools, museums and galleries, as well as in centres for urban studies and architecture.
Her research interests have included themes such as inter-professional collaboration in education, young people's participation in environmental change, the school as a learning environment and public art. Her most recent work with The Campaign for Drawing has focused on drawing as a medium for learning. As an advocate for experiential learning and action research she shares her work through publications, conferences and courses both in the UK and internationally, in countries such as Australia, Austria, Brazil, Japan, Sweden and the United States. Publications include: Art and the Built Environment, Learning through Landscapes, Changing Places, Public Art: projects, people, process, Shaping Places and the Power Drawing series for The Campaign for Drawing.