Claudia Kinnaird is the new Spanish 2 and Spanish 3 teacher at Gibson Southern High School. She was born in New York City, New York. However, she mostly grew up in Argentina. She first worked in hotel management for 18 years before beginning to teach Spanish, which she has taught for about 22 years. She started her teaching career at Signature School in Evansville, Indiana before moving to North High School. Now, she is a new addition to the Spanish Department at Gibson Southern High School. She fluently speaks four languages: English, Spanish, Italian and Romanian.
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Southerner: How have you enjoyed Gibson Southern so far?
Kinnaird: “Oh, I really like it. To be honest, I really, really like it.”
Southerner: Why did you choose to work at Gibson Southern?
Kinnaird: “Well, I’m coming from a very big school. I worked for 18 years in a school with 1,700 kids. It came to a point [where] this was opening, and they always said that Gibson was a good school. And I said, ‘Let’s go and try.’ I didn’t know too much about it. I just said ‘Let’s go and look at it.’”
Southerner: What is your first language?
Kinnaird: “My first language was English, believe it or not. My mom was Italian and my dad was Romanian. They spoke to me in Italian and Romanian when I was young. Both of them immigrated to Argentina and they were speaking Spanish to me. I was born in the United States in New York City [when] my dad came to the United States for a scholarship for hotel management at Cornell University. And, that is when my sister and I were born, and we started to move around. We moved around and then we went back to Argentina. We lived there for 15 years and in 1989, I decided to come back to the United States because I have my citizenship and I worked in the city.”
Southerner: What is your prior work experience?
Kinnaird: “Prior to [North High School], I worked at Signature. I worked at Signature from 2001 to 2006. In 2006, I went to North. But, prior that, my job was hotel management. I worked in hotel management for 18 years. But, you know, that type of job is very rough. I decided to do something different, and everybody was pushing me to be a teacher because I always have a good rapport with people, and I enjoy teenagers. Also, I teach in Ivy Tech (Ivy Tech Community College) and USI (University of Southern Indiana), but I’m going to leave it. It’s too much. I’m getting old.”
Southerner: Why did you choose to leave North High School?
Kinnaird: “You know, I didn’t have any problems. I loved my kids at North and my coworkers. I really do, I mean seriously, but when this came up, you don’t understand, it was like bling, like click! And I said, ‘Well, I want to try this’ because Mrs. Treadway was saying ‘It’s such a good school, it’s so nice Claudia.’ Other people that know people from here were telling me the same. And, I’m like ‘I’m going to give it a try and I’m going to just go.’ And I came to the interview, and I really like it.”
Southerner: What will you miss the most about North?
Kinnaird: “I miss some of my students that I became very close with. They were seniors. That’s what I miss, and I miss some of my coworkers. But, here, people are very nice but I don’t know too many, that’s all. Again, it was a good change, a very positive change.”
Southerner: Do you have children?
Kinnaird: “I have two daughters. Nicole is 28 and Clara is 23.”
Southerner: What is your favorite thing about teaching?
Kinnaird: “To see the eyes of my students when they realize that they can do it. It happened this week. When I’m teaching them something new, and they are afraid to speak, and they end up speaking. Their eyes, they’re like, ‘We can do it!’ And, that is my main thing. That’s my purpose.”
Southerner: What’s a typical Saturday night like for you?
Kinnaird: “I’m sitting with my dogs and my husband, and I’m relaxing.”
Southerner: What are your hobbies?
Kinnaird: “My hobbies are playing volleyball. Gardening, I like to garden because it’s very peaceful. Yoga, to do yoga and just be in nature. I really like nature.”
Southerner: Did you play volleyball in high school?
Kinnaird: “It’s very different out there (Argentina). I played in a club. You play volleyball in high school but not like here, where they go school to school and compete. I played 12 years of volleyball.”
Southerner: What is your greatest accomplishment in life so far?
Kinnaird: “Seeing my daughters growing up to care about other people. That was one of my big accomplishments as a mom. As a person, sharing the language and the passion that I have for languages to other people so that they can speak and they can do it.”
Southerner: What’s the worst thing about being a teacher?
Kinnaird: “Okay, the worst thing for me, in my career, is when they make me do so much paperwork. So much paperwork, so many things that don’t matter in the career. It’s like the paperwork, fill out the papers, papers, papers, papers. It doesn’t matter, and takes the time away from thinking about what you can do as a teacher.”
Southerner: How do you want students to feel about the time spent in your classroom?
Kinnaird: “I want them to come up happy. That’s my target. I don’t know if they are because I’m brand new, but I want them to come up and they are happy that they can speak at least a little of another language, because that is very important to speak another language.”
Southerner: What is your spirit animal?
Kinnaird: “A tiger. A tiger is very quiet, but don’t bother him because he will be mad.”
Southerner: Who is your personal hero?
Kinnaird: “My mom and my dad because they went through a war, they escaped Europe with nothing and they never complain. You saw them, they were always happy. They were always grateful for what they have. My dad was very important at some point but he was very lowkey. He was very high up in the company in the Hyatt hotels, but he was very lowkey because he said ‘I was hungry.’ You know, due to the war. That was their mentality.”
Southerner: What music do you listen to?
Kinnaird: “All kinds, oh my God. Being around teenagers, you hear everything. I listen to everything. You know, the country music, I like it, but I start to know it because I never listened to it until really around my young kids. I listen to all kinds. I don’t like too much of the cursing.”
Southerner: Do you watch any TV?
Kinnaird: “I watch sports, and I like to watch ‘Friends.’ I love that show because it’s so silly that you laugh. It’s so funny. I like TV, but I don’t watch too much.”
Southerner: What is your favorite part of the day?
Kinnaird: “My favorite part of the day is when I drive back [home] or I come back to work because it’s 15 minutes that I’m by myself, and I can reflect on a lot of things: what I have to do and what I don’t. I’m very, not spiritual or religious, but I’m very like that, like thinking how I can be better with others and all that stuff.”
Southerner: What is your favorite food?
Kinnaird: “Italian. I love Italian. I do like meat, but I like pasta.”
Southerner: What has been your favorite vacation you’ve taken or place you have been?
Kinnaird: “Madrid (Spain) and Florence (Italy) were very close to me for my past, for my family, for my roots. A place that I love in the United States and I will keep going and going and going is New York and Vermont. And, I like Nashville (Tennessee). It’s such a peaceful place, not New York, but Vermont.”
Southerner: What do you like most about New York?
Kinnaird: “The craziness. I worked in New York. I do not want to live there at this stage in my life. I lived there when I was 28, and it was wonderful. It was excellent but not now. I like Bloomington (Indiana). Bloomington and New Harmony (Indiana) are very special places, very earthy.”
