Jim Berman (@ChefTalkJim on Twitter) is a Chef Instructor working with 10th, 11th and 12th graders at Delcastle Technical High School in Wilmington, Delaware. A member of FENI and the National Restaurant Association, he's a contributor to the Cooking Without Borders blog.

This blog is the first of three in a series on Career and Technical Education.

A Viable Alternative to "Success"

What shop class is not:

• A predetermined destination for students with discipline issues
• The alternative venue for teenage offenders opting to avoid prison
• A bandage for an oft-bleeding system

Geoff Butterfield has served The George Lucas Educational Foundation for 17 years as IT Director, Senior Technical Producer and most recently Technical Production Director at Edutopia. He is also co-owner of Coconut Moon Web Services. We will miss him!

I've always said, "I'll leave when the website is done, or the educational system is fixed," which made my colleagues giggle. Anyone who's ever worked on a big website like edutopia.org knows there's always something to do, just as anyone who's ever worked on education reform thinks Sisyphus is a big baby who should stop whining and get back to work.

Mark Phillips is a columnist for the Marin Independent Journal and the The Answer Sheet. He volunteers with the California Film Institute's Educational Outreach Program and serves on the Board of the Buck Institute for Education. You can connect with him on Facebook.

A very important controversy related to children is flying under the radar of most educators. It's a controversy in which educator voices could play a highly constructive role.

Some background first. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders. It's used by mental health professionals, researchers, psychiatric drug regulation agencies, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and policy makers. There have been a number of revisions since it was first published in 1952, and each revision has included more mental disorders.

Randy Taran (@RandyTaran on Twitter) is the founder of Project Happiness, a non-profit that empowers youth to create greater happiness in their lives and in the world. She is the co-author, with Maria Lineger, of the Project Happiness Handbook, which makes the best of positive psychology, emotional intelligence and global literacy accessible to students in six countries.

This is part three of the seven-part series, from the Project Happiness curriculum. It explores the many facets of happiness and provides practical techniques to generate greater happiness and a more meaningful life -- from the inside. By reclaiming the happiness you were born with, you influence those around you to tap into the best within themselves, too.

Dr. Danielle Moss Lee (@HEAFNYC on Twitter) is President and CEO at Harlem Educational Activities Fund (HEAF). With a background in administration and non-profits, she's passionate about educational equity, college access, curriculum and youth development. Read her blog at http://www.heaf.org/blog/.

Naturally, I understand that there's no significant magic or difference in providing college planning and counseling services to students of color per se, but there are important ways to help build upon their college aspirations in the course of doing this work. A while back, several colleagues and I got into a long discussion about the quality of their college advisors during the critical junior and senior years of high school.

Ayanna Cooper PhD is the Director for English Language Learner Programs for Southbridge Public Schools, an adjunct professor, and independent educational consultant. She was the chair of the 2009 Southeast TESOL Regional Conference, and the 2009–2010 president of Georgia TESOL, a professional development standing committee. Dr. Cooper was selected as one of ASCD's Emerging Leaders in 2010.

Classrooms across the United States are becoming increasingly diverse with increasing numbers of students whose primary home languages are not English. State-reported data in 2008-09 estimated 10 percent of the US school-aged population (PreK-twelfth grade) as students identified as limited English proficient. Terms more widely accepted and used are English language learners or simply English Learners (ELs).