Carey Goldstein is joining the Cultures of Dignity team as the Director of Owning Up Programs after working in a school as a school counselor for 15 years.
Meet Cultures of Dignity’s newest team member!
Cultures of Dignity: Tell us a little about yourself!
Carey: I live in Louisville, Kentucky with my family. I graduated from American University and got my Masters in Education with a focus on Counseling at Old Dominion. I have spent the majority of my life in Louisville which is where I met my husband, Dan. We have two girls, Elise is 14 and Sally is 12. We love food and music and one of our favorite things to do is cook dinner and dance in the kitchen. If it was up to Elise we would listen to show tunes every night but we try to mix it up as much as possible. Elise and Sally are involved in sports and musical theater and that takes up a lot of our time, which is OK since we are all sports fans that enjoy a good musical!
Cultures of Dignity: How did you get involved in Cultures of Dignity’s work?
Owning Up Curriculum
Carey: I was a school counselor for 15 years and about eight years ago there was a particularly tough group of kids coming through the middle school. As a school, we wanted to figure out a better way to help them navigate all the stuff they were going through. A colleague of mine found an Owning Up training with Rosalind in Washington DC and a few of us signed up to go. It was the first curriculum I found that was down to earth and realistic as well as fitting my personality. I was always trying to avoid falling into old school counselor stereotypes and this curriculum really helped. When we really knew it would work for my school was when the teachers felt comfortable using it as well. We worked together integrating it into the 6th-8th-grade curriculum. The icing on the cake was when the kids liked the classes and started sharing more about their world which helped us help them. I have woven the Owning Up curriculum into my program with both middle and high school kids ever since.
Cultures of Dignity: You have been a counselor for 15 years. What will you miss about it the most?
Carey: The kids. I am really excited about joining the Cultures of Dignity team but I will miss the daily interaction with my students. I worked in a small school and was lucky enough to really get to know my students. I left a school that I truly love. It was the right decision at the right time but I will miss the daily buzz and energy of working in a school.
Cultures of Dignity: Tell us about your experience working with Owning Up in Tanzania?
Carey: Last summer I was lucky enough to participate in a teacher exchange through my school, Louisville Collegiate School, with a school in Arusha, Tanzania. Each year a few teachers go and spend three weeks working with their teachers exchanging best practices and ideas. The Tanzanian people are amazing. They are kind and generous and desperately want to educate their children in the best way possible to help their country move forward and out of poverty. I was able to introduce some small parts of Owning Up to the faculty. Classes like Owning Up are not common in their education system but many educators are beginning to recognize the importance of working with the whole child. In particular, they loved anonymously sharing their armor. Many teachers expressed gratitude for the opportunity to feel connected to their colleagues in a way that they had not previously felt through sharing their armor. As they move towards creating a counseling office I hope to continue to share Owning Up with them. I would love to get back to Tanzania someday!
Cultures of Dignity: As a parent, a school counselor, and now Director of Owning Up Programming for Cultures of Dignity, what is one piece of advice you can give to parents?
Carey: Never, never, never assume the story your child is telling you is the whole story. It never is, no matter how much they swear they have told you everything. There is always something they don’t know or have left out.
Learn more about Owning Up!
