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Rousing Success for TESA’s Rise Up Kickstarter

Thanks to 740 people and organizations who backed Rise Up: The Game of People and Power on Kickstarter, we’re proud to report that our board game about building movements will be available to the public by April 2017! When we launched our Kickstarter, we set a goal of raising $35,000 over the course of a[…]

Educate & Organize: TESA on Trump’s Election

We at the TESA Collective are devastated by the election results and the rise of Donald Trump. To be clear, TESA does not officially support any individual party, but Donald Trump must be recognized for what he is: a fascist. We do not use that word lightly or as a hyperbole. His platform is rooted[…]

Using Non-Competitive Games for Education and Building Community

When people think of games, they often think of competitive games where one player wins, and everyone else loses. Competitive games encourage players to work against each other, rather than together. Competition can not only be discouraging for the majority of non-winners, but over time can turn people off from playing games all together. Why[…]

‘What To Do instead of Calling the Police” is a Must Read

Neighborhoods across the nation are in midst of major changes. As they occur, conversations at the local, state and national levels are shining light on countless examples of ongoing brutality from police in already vulnerable communities. In the Bay area for example, where gentrification is on the rise, 311 (nonviolent) calls have gone up almost[…]

In Massachusetts, These Inmates are Starting their Own Cooperatives

Policing and the industrial prison complex are a main topic of conversation in cities and towns all over the country. #BlackLivesMatter supporters have brought conversations to the forefront about the police and our prison system, especially within the black community. In addition to justice for the ongoing murders of people of color, queer and transgender[…]

Can Philadelphia launch a new wave of worker cooperatives?

Our friends at the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA) have recently won a pretty amazing grant, and Oscar Perry Abello over at Next City just wrote an article on it called Following the Footsteps of African American Cooperatives. The article highlights a Philadelphia-based program called 20 Book Clubs 20 Cooperative Businesses that PACA is organizing,[…]

Tips For Making Your Conference Workshops Interactive and Engaging

Our worker-owner Andrew Stachiw has years of experience in facilitating conference workshops. Here, he shares some of the guidelines he’s developed to make them interactive and engaging – because there’s nothing worse than going to a conference you’re excited about and having the presenter put you to sleep. As many of us know, a conference[…]

Behind the Project

TESA Works with Pinchot University to Create Cooperative Business Curriculum

TESA worked with the Center for Inclusive Entrepreneurship (CIE) at Pinchot University to adapt and build their existing business curriculum to a worker-cooperative business curriculum. This partnership lead to the creation of an extensive worker co-op start-up program, with sessions focused on a range of topics from “Cooperative Culture” to “Membership, Structure, and Governance.” Challenges[…]

Democratic Education

Using Democratic Education in the Classroom

Each time we give a presentation on democratic education we’re asked how it can be applied in a traditional classroom setting. The classroom is one of the least democratic spaces we encounter. Unsurprisingly, teachers and students alike want to move beyond its confining structure. Workshops and other non-traditional education settings are more easily reconfigured—at least[…]