When I taught a semester of American history at Fremont High, I had this picture of W.E.B. DuBois on the wall behind my desk. DuBois seems calm, but also industrious, working steadily, focused, and at ease. At least, that's what I liked to imagine and to tell students. One message I hoped students would take away was that doing good work in this world means doing ones homework.
Unfortunately, the quality of this image (from Google images) is low. I had blown up my copy from David Levering Lewis' biography of DuBois, which I have since given to a friend. I'll try to replace this image soon with a better copy.
Here's another:
In my classrooms I try to have less portraits of historical characters,
and more dynamic pictures that show them involved in their life, pictures that reveal their character and circumstances. I imagine that these images, by offering a glimpse into Dubois' world, bring DuBois more to life for students than the portraits with inspirational quotes I see in so many classrooms, such as the one below. Not that that there's anything wrong with inspirational quotes :)
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