Elle Harvey

I was born in Montréal, Québec, Canada. My mother worked as a nurse and named me after her supervisor, Soeur Hélène, who was a powerful figure in her life.  I grew up among the trees in the countryside of Laval before moving to Vancouver for five years. I also lived on Oahu, Hawaii, for a year; Tucson, Arizona, for eight years, Austin, Texas, for two years, and now in Nashville, Tennessee, since 2004.

I have had many nicknames over this landscape. For the past past few years I have enjoyed being called Farmer Elle, pronounced as the one letter L. A student called me Elf recently and I liked that too!

My last name Harvey is pronounced with a French twist in Québec. One of the 14 pioneer families who immigrated from France, the Harvey clan was originally from Scotland. My father was very proud of his name and family. I am glad that I kept the name in his honor. 

My coming into the role of teacher sneaked up on me by surprise. I loved scuba diving and a local group asked me to teach a class of freshwater ecology. I loved it! During grad school I was a teaching assistant for more biology classes than I can count, but it is when I began to work with the National Science Foundation to develop science curriculum at the K-12 level working with teachers in their classrooms that my interest in education really began to take center stage. Moving to Austin we were lucky to be able to enroll our 2 year old son in the All Austin Cooperative Nursery School. There I fell in love with the Reggio way of teaching and discovered how much I adore working with younger students.

Moving to Nashville, I opened A New Leaf in 2005 with a first summer camp followed by a preschool group of 12 students in the fall on our one acre home. We spent a lot of time outdoors, climbing honeysuckle, gardening, tending to projects, and children cooked every day. I have trained with other forest schools, but have yet to go visit the inspiration from Scandinavia and England. I have been to Reggio Emilia, Italy, and visited many Reggio inspired schools in the USA as well as trained with the Italian educators here. I want to continue to learn alongside people of all ages.

Create an educational journey to inspire the world in transforming our relationships to learning that serves the whole person and the planet.

Jacques Cousteau, Pippi Longstalking, Dr. John Downing, Dr. Judith Bronstein, Dr. Lucinda McDade, Jennifer Saltman, Brené Brown, Lella Gandini, Lois, Eckhart Tolle. Together they have taught me passion for biology as the science of life, how to be resilient and persevere, that we can find another way and get a second chance, that I have hope and strength.

When I was young I wanted to be a pirate with a hook, then a veterinarian, then a marine biologist. I did not want to have children, or do anything that was remotely associated with typical female roles. I have to laugh!  Being a parent and playing a role in helping other parents, as humbling and challenging experiences they prove to be, are the most wonderful gifts of my life.

Play board games with my children, hike or walk with friends or goats, dance, cook with people, teach, and travel by bike, train, or small boat.

In my family of origin we spoke French. English solidified as a second language when I moved to Vancouver for my Master’s degree. I am on day 1254 of Italian on Duolingo, but don’t ask me to speak it.

My grandmother taught me the language of knitting which I have not practiced very much lately. I want to learn how to make yarn.

I hope to make progress in understanding bird songs and develop fluency in bioacoustics.

Cato’s Tomatoes spaghetti sauce which is a healthy improvement on my mother’s recipe. I love Asian foods, notably Indian and Japanese cuisines!

My favorite color is the full spectrum of autumn oranges. It stirs something deep in me, a passion rooted in childhood streets lined with trees ablaze, glowing like lanterns in celebration of the harvest.

Orange sings its joyful song just before winter’s first snow, as the air fills with the promise of change. And on the ground, round and radiant magic: pumpkins tell stories etched on their skin with wonder glowing in their orange hearts.

Ski down a powdered mountain, kayak and camp for two weeks, go on a silent retreat!

Being co-researchers with children and adults, within the stimulating context of developing an emergent curriculum, while exploring one hundred languages of expression and working in nature is a celebration of life itself! I hope that more and more children and teachers can go to school outdoors, meaningfully engaged in projects and valued for their intellectual contributions. I know these people will grow to create solutions for the environmental crisis.