NORTH HOLLYWOOD : A Teacher Like No Other, Parents Say

Room 1 at Colfax Avenue Elementary School is much like any other kindergarten classroom, with crayon-covered tables and green plastic chairs shrunk to fit small frames, purple and green plastic lunch boxes lined up on the floor.

But standing in the middle of the room in a flowered dress, amid a swelling chorus of “Mrs. Bean, Mrs. Bean,” is a woman who makes Room 1 like no other.

Cindy Bean has been a fixture in this North Hollywood classroom for 20 years.

Bean, who teaches mathematics using painted lima beans, buttons and plastic drinking straws, is besieged by 5-year-olds. She walks with at least one child clinging to a hand or sleeve, or wrapped around her waist in a fierce hug.

With the excitement of a child herself, Bean takes visitors on a tour through craft-filled Room 1.

Over the sink hangs a poster listing students’ native American names, part of their November learning theme. Running Bear, Pink Flower, Gliding Hawk, Cloud Princess, Little Happy Girl, the children call themselves.

On another wall, a howling wolf made of gray moss crouches on a path of sticks, bark and leaves collected on a nature walk. Under a window are native American dolls made of spoons, felt, brown paper grocery bags, cloth, even a tuft of some 5-year-old’s father’s hair.

“Isn’t it just 5?” Bean chuckled as she looked into a doll’s Magic Marker face. “It’s so 5. . . . You can’t improve on perfection.”

To Bean, each student in her class is special.

“Children need to learn to work together and they need to learn in an environment where they feel safe . . . where they feel safe to make mistakes,” she said.

Bean believes children learn best by doing. If a teacher writes “3 + 2” on a chalkboard and tells students it equals five, there’s only a slight chance they’ll learn, she said. But place five lima beans--three painted red and two white--into a small hand and it’s something they can grasp--literally.

This philosophy is one reason Bean is among 36 finalists in Walt Disney Co.’s American Teacher Awards, whose winners will be announced Friday.

Parents, who nominated Bean for the award, say their children come home from school confident and excited.

“She tells each kid she’s wonderful, she’s a star,” said Julie Chambers, whose daughter Cecily is in Bean’s class.

“She’s getting them off to such a great start at school,” agreed another parent, Michelle Lisanti. “They beg to do homework. Mine does, anyway.”

Chambers said that when she first met Bean, she kept waiting for the teacher’s enthusiasm to wane. But Bean never stops, Chambers said. And the enthusiasm, parents say, is contagious. “We can’t get the kids to leave after the day’s over,” Chambers said.