Miksang with Meg

MEET GDS’S NEW ASSOCIATE HEAD OF SCHOOL THROUGH THE LENS OF HER iPHONE.

Meg Goldner Rabinowitz brings more than 30 years of experience as a classroom teacher, diversity leader, teacher educator, and administrator in independent schools in Philadelphia, Seattle, and Honolulu. The veteran educator, gardener-poet, and mother of three grown children is also a practitioner of miksang, a Tibetan art form fusing meditation and contemplative photography. Meg began her practice during a time of grief and loss. “I found miksang photography to be a way of saying, ‘even amidst the great despair of a moment, there is inexpressible beauty.’” Her photography also keeps her connected to the people she loves. 

 

 

1.  CHALLAH. HERITAGE. HOME. 

With weekly homemade challah, Meg holds her Jewish cultural heritage close. The traditional loaf evokes her family roots in Philly, where she was raised, educated, and spent 30 years teaching at Germantown Friends School (GFS) and 12 years teaching teachers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.
 

 

2.  PEACEFUL PADDLING 

From the Schuylkill River in Philly (pictured) to a Martha’s Vineyard pond, Meg knows the power of calm-water kayaking to soothe an uneasy soul. Soon, she’ll be touring our Potomac River and other Chesapeake Bay waterways. Meg will also be on the lookout for single buds and blooms—her specialty—like this lovely Anemone coronaria ‘Blue Poppy’ that she found in Pennsylvania’s Longwood Gardens. 
 

 

3.  HAPPY PLACE 

“Sea glass, beach, sunset, some kids, and Jack [the dog],” Meg said, are guaranteed to get her to her happy place. And Martha’s Vineyard doesn’t disappoint: she loves a lobster at Larsen’s in Menemsha, a gallery visit in Vineyard Haven, or a walk along the shore to watch the waves roll in. She spotted this pipestem clematis in Edgartown. 

 

4.  THE OTHER COAST 

After four years as Assistant Head of School at the Northwest School in Seattle, she has hundreds of nature snaps of dahlias (pictured), berries, and Rainier cherries, not to mention walks with visitors, including her middle child, Ethan (pictured). 


 

5.  DESTINATION DC 

Meg kept track of her journey from Seattle, Washington to Washington, DC with simple dashboard designs and photos along the way. Meg’s children (left to right) Simon, Lucy, and Ethan celebrated her arrival in DC after her cross-country road trip to deliver her defenseless dependents—beloved succulents, tropical shrubs, and orchids—safely to their new home. 


 

6.  ABOVE THE CLOUDS 

With travels across Europe and Asia during years of school choir trips, an around-the-world solo sabbatical, a teaching stint in India, presentations during social justice-focused conferences across the country, an 11-year partnership with the Punahou School in Honolulu as founding teacher and instructional designer for Global Online Academy, and visits to her children living in Atlanta, L.A., and New England, this is a familiar view for Meg, who captured this gobsmacking view from her airplane seat. Mary Oliver, one of Meg’s favorite poets, once wrote, “Instructions for living a life / Pay attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it.” With her miksang (“good eye”) and contemplative photography, Meg folds a grateful outlook into her self-described ”collaborative, strategic, and balanced” work style.