Born in Philadelphia, Elizabeth grew up in Wisconsin and Indiana. As a child, she was very aware of other educational possibilities, particularly through family friends whose children went to the Kimberton Waldorf School and did activities like making yogurt in the school’s biodynamic and organic dairy farm. In her early years, Elizabeth wanted that too, but there was no Waldorf school near her in Wisconsin. For high school, Elizabeth had wide ranging experiences including public school, a semester of unschooling–after reading the Teenage Liberation Handbook, and a stint at boarding school with a program in India where she spent time living in the Himalayas. After High School, Elizabeth studied creative writing, studio art, and language at Indiana University where she met her husband, Bryan.
They came to Tucson for Elizabeth to attend the University of Arizona for her M.F.A in Poetry in 2011. Elizabeth’s daughter, Willow, was enrolled in a language immersion school, but was not happy there. In March of 2011, Willow enrolled at TWS in the Red Rose Kindergarten, and her little brother Sebastian started in the Nursery the following year. What initially attracted Elizabeth to TWS was the heart-space feeling. She would arrive at the early childhood each morning as a busy parent, dropping her child off, and would come away with a feeling of calm, like time was altered there. That feeling at the school gave her a sense of patience and a chance to reset. This was a space she wanted to inhabit. Willow once said, “Mommy, you could be a teacher here,” a thought which has now become a reality. Elizabeth graduated from a 3-year summer teacher training program at Antioch University with a Waldorf Grades Teacher Certification. Ms. Falcon was hired in Spring of 2019 to be the teacher for the Tucson Waldorf School class of 2027.
Elizabeth has had many teaching experiences with a wide range of ages. She has worked with middle schoolers and has taught college level poetry students during a poetry residency. Elizabeth’s prior professional experience also includes 5 years working at the company she and Bryan created, Haiku Learning, which was bought by PowerSchool in 2016. Elizabeth worked in customer service, quality assurance, and systems operation management. Haiku was a built tool similar to ParentSquare which offered an online learning platform with k-12 focus that allowed teachers to easily create content for the classroom. Elizabeth and Bryan are the founders of the local Tucson theater, The Scoundrel & Scamp. In her free time, Elizabeth plays cello and participates in circus arts classes as well as a local Stanislavsky workshop taught by theater educator Philip Bennett. She shares a home with her husband Bryan, children Willow and Sebastian, and a cat and a kitten, Eos and Sunlight.