In March of 2020, when the world was struck by COVID-19, Glen Coleman's high school in New Jersey became one of the thousand schools nationwide that were forced to pivot to online instruction. While so much about this new reality was unknown, Glen was certain of two things:

1. The year ahead would be an epic disruption.
2. He would write a book to help his fellow teachers not just survive but thrive.

The result of his yearlong effort is 100 or Nothing: Reimagining Success in the Classroom. Part memoir, part field guide, and part toolbox for the disheartened, Glen builds upon his extensive experience and exhaustive research during the most consequential year of our lifetime.

As an educator who understood the need to exploit the power of digital technology with the introduction of laptops in the classroom in 2006, Glen reinvented his teaching. He now harnesses failure, teaches from the back of the classroom, puts students at the front of the classroom, and challenges them with “impossible” tests.

With critical thinking as the goal, students workshop their responses to difficult questions in order to connect the classroom to the outside world. Listeners will come to understand the need to think outside the box. When we create a system in which students learn from and support one another “all boats rise”.

Excerpts

I believe to ask is human, to pursue, divine. Great questions have the power to open minds, especially when we stop, listen, and engage in conversation with our students... Yes, I feel the stress of a society whose ties are fraying, but the question “What do you think?” still has the power to awaken young people. If we’ve become robots, perhaps a surviving corpuscle will remind our circuitry of when we were human: teaching meant deepening human bonds with course material, especially with young people. But if you’re hankering to teach has not yet been crushed—may it never!—let this book spark your reinvention.

I try to instill in my students that learning requires not perfection but failure, not depression but a sense of humor. Learning checkmates everyone. Laugh. Try again. Finding the strength to get back up is the lesson.

It’s not about the answer.

It’s not about the grade.