By Joyce LeeThe Daily Northwestern

After students walk into the classroom, they automatically bend down to remove their winter boots. Some of them grab a mug from the wooden rack beside the door and help themselves to a cup of hot Earl Grey tea from the pot in the corner.

One girl eyes the open bag of chocolate chip cookies near the teacher’s desk, which is piled high with papers. The rest of the teenagers plod across colorful Oriental rugs and recline on the beaded pillows lining the walls.

History class with Aaron Becker is a little unconventional.

Becker’s extraordinary teaching methods recently made him one of 32 finalists for the 2007 Golden Apple Awards for Excellence in Teaching. Becker, a 38-year-old Skokie native, teaches Middle Eastern and African history at Evanston Township High School.

“It’s gratifying and ironically humbling,” said Becker, sitting cross-legged on one of the colorful rugs he purchased in Turkey. “Usually when you’re getting recognized for your professional and personal achievements you feel proud, but I feel strangely humbled.”

There were 941 teachers nominated for the Chicago-area awards, and only 10 winners will be chosen in mid-March. Each winner will receive a tuition-free fall-term sabbatical at Northwestern University, $3,000, a personal computer and membership in the Golden Apple Academy, which runs programs promoting better teaching.

Becker was Evanston’s only finalist.

“(I am) not surprised at all that he would get nominated,” said Jennifer Fisher, head of the school’s history department. “There are 980 applicants and 30 finalists, and it’s a real tribute to him.”

Becker, in his eighth year at ETHS, set himself apart from the competition with an unusual teaching philosophy.

He constructs his class around global perspectives and around his students’ abilities to imagine and to experiment.

“My idea is giving everyone a different identity when they walk into my class,” Becker said. “If you’re a cart driver in Morocco, how do you think about this? If you’re a banker in Syria, how do you think about this?”

Becker said he has been interested in Islam since he was a 9-year-old boy on the way to synagogue. He asked his father which religion he would choose if he were forced to cast off Judaism.

“Simple – Islam,” his father replied.

Although he held onto his Jewish beliefs, Becker’s curiosity has since motivated him to travel with two Fulbright grants to Turkey and Morocco and to spend summers in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Russia.

Along the way, he has studied nine languages and garnered a reputation for being a passionate history teacher with first-hand knowledge, according to his students.

“He tried to get his students globally aware,” said Jennifer Lambert, a senior who took his Middle Eastern Studies class as a sophomore.

“He hosted interesting field trips,” Lambert said, “like an end-of-Ramadan celebration at a mosque, set up his room – no desks, had to take your shoes off, tea on Fridays – and he dressed in the appropriate attire – traditional Middle Eastern.”

Becker said he encourages his students to consider cultural viewpoints from the world outside his classroom.

Before leaving on a trip to Saudi Arabia last year, he asked his students to create a 15-minute film documenting the lifestyle at ETHS. He showed the footage to Saudi Arabian high school students and asked them to do the same for the American teenagers.

“They can’t believe how real and how familiar these kids are,” Becker said. “When I teach them that some Muslims drink and some Muslims don’t pray five times a day, they are just aghast.”

There are two Middle Eastern Barbie dolls propped up near the chalkboard, and a handful of hijabs, the traditional headscarf for Muslim women, hang in the closet. Becker lends these to his female students, who sometimes wear them for the whole day, he said.

“He interacts very well, not on a superficial level, but a very deep level,” said Fisher. “If my own kids were here, I’d certainly want them to have Mr. Becker as a teacher.”

Becker said he takes great pleasure in connecting foreign countries to his Evanston classroom, and the well-traveled teacher said he hopes to someday spend time in South Africa, Ethiopia and Iran.

“One of the things I like about travel is it’s like a mirror,” said Becker, who stays in touch with friends from across the world. “You are forced to reflect on who you are and where you come from.”

Although some students have scoffed at the idea of learning in their socks, the majority, like Lambert, find it refreshing and engaging.

“He’s really a thinking and ruminating teacher,” said Fisher. “Some days he’ll come into my office, shake my hand and say, ‘I am having an amazing day today.’ “

Reach Joyce Lee at [email protected].