Missouri Teacher Finds New Adventure in Africa

Sometimes, in Sheila Durk’s childhood home, the electric company would cut the power. 

Sometimes, there was no food in the fridge. 

Durk and her siblings made sure they always ate the free breakfast and lunch at school, because sometimes, that’s all there was.

“School was my haven,” Durk said. “I loved going to school, and I had teachers that would foster my love of learning.”

When real life got difficult, which was often, Durk would escape through books. She’d read about all the interesting places in the world and dream of one day exploring them herself. Her plan was to join the U.S. Army after high school, just like her dad. She wanted to be a Military Police Soldier, which would allow her to travel, protect and serve, and make a solid living so she could always pay her bills.

It seemed like a perfect plan. Until, that is, it fell apart. 

‘My Dream Was Gone’ 

Durk has been supporting herself since she was 17 years old. After high school, she moved from inner-city Oklahoma City to a small town in Missouri. She got a job as the general manager of a local movie theater, and she was working with a military recruiter to get ready for basic training.

Then, the movie theater shut down. Durk couldn’t afford to be without a paycheck, even for a short while, so she had to quickly hunt for another job. The one she found involved a lot of manual labor, and Durk broke her back. 

“The military isn’t picky about some things, but they are picky about mobility,” she said. “My dream was gone. I thought my whole world was over.”  

Durk was in extreme pain, even after going through two back surgeries. She was irritable, short-tempered, and constantly stressed about losing her apartment if she couldn’t pay the rent. She’d had her whole life mapped out, but now, she couldn’t see a way forward.

Her saving grace came in a phone call from her pastor. Her church runs a small private school, and her pastor told her they needed a kindergarten teacher. Did Durk want the job?  

“I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t like kids, so I don’t know if that would be a good idea,’” she said. 

Her pastor encouraged her to pray about it, anyway, and when Durk did, she felt like she was supposed to say yes. 

Making School ‘A Safe Place’  

When she started as a kindergarten teacher in October of 2012, Durk knew essentially nothing about being a kindergarten teacher. It was a private school, so she didn’t need a teaching license. She and her students just figured it out together, she said. She learned patience, lots and lots of patience, and she was always experimenting with new teaching methods and ideas.

The first time she taught a kid how to read — when she saw it starting to click — she was hooked. 

“We’re building a foundation in kindergarten,” she said. “If you’re good at your job, because kids will soak it all up if you do it right, you build this foundation. They’re going to be able to build on that for the rest of their lives.” 

When Durk was growing up, her teachers took care of her. She was in kindergarten during the 1995 OKC bombing, just blocks from where it happened, and she’ll never forget how her teacher kept the entire class calm and sheltered them from fear. 

Durk was the “poor kid” whose clothes smelled like smoke, she said, but her teachers never showed her anything but care and support. One of her favorite teachers, Mrs. Elsworth from 4th grade, left Durk her classroom library in her will. 

“That’s the kind of teacher I want to be,” Durk said. “I want to be a teacher that remembers her students years after because they’ve made that much of an impact. But I also want my students to remember, ‘Oh, she was a safe place, and she cared.’” 

Sheila Durk with some of her students during Halloween

Making It ‘Legit’  

As someone who grew up with a lot of instability, Durk prioritizes stability in her adult life. She’s been teaching at the same private school for 13 years (her first class of kindergarten students is getting ready to graduate high school this year), and she’s been living in the same apartment for 16 years. But last year, she felt something start to shift.

“I felt unmoored,” she said. 

She started to look at what possibilities might be open to her, and that’s when she learned about international teaching. Even the thought of change is scary to Durk, but at the same time, it sounded amazing.

Durk has always worked multiple jobs to pay her bills (delivery driver, cleaner, tutor, cheesecake baker, wedding officiant, and more). As an international teacher, she could be paid to travel. Her housing and food could be covered as part of her salary. And, for the first time since her teenage years, she could work just one job.

“Everything fell into place,” she said. “But I’m looking at it, and I was like, ‘OK, I need a teaching degree. I need this to be legit.’” 

Earning Her License  

Durk already had a bachelor’s degree in criminal science, so she was looking for a graduate teacher preparation program. With Moreland University, she realized she could complete her program online and thus wouldn’t have to quit her job. Plus, she could do her student teaching in her current classroom; that was very important to her, she said. And, she could complete Moreland’s program in just 9 months.  

Durk is in the middle of her Moreland program now (slated to finish in June), and she’s learning a lot about differentiation and classroom management, she said. She’d never had to create a classroom management plan before, for example, but now she has experience and a template.

She’s also learning a lot about educational theory. She has more than a dozen years of teaching experience; now, she has terminology and educational science to back up what she knows.

“I would absolutely recommend Moreland because, No. 1, each and every instructor has been amazing,” she said. “They’re helpful. They take the time.”

Durk is working multiple jobs each day — teaching along with other part-time gigs to make ends meet — but she’s still able to complete her Moreland assignments.

“The workload is doable, it’s manageable,” she said. “But it’s still challenging me at the same time. I like that.” 

The Next Adventure 

Every year, on the first day of school, Durk takes a picture of her students. She frames it and puts it behind her desk.

“So behind my desk now is 13 years of all my students on the first day of school,” she said. 

At the end of this school year, Durk will pack up those 13 frames and put them in a suitcase. Then, Durk and her dog, Max, are getting on a plane for Djibouti. In August, Durk will start her new job as a 4th/5th grade teacher at an international school. She found the job through Search Associates, she said, and after two years, if she wants to move to another school in a different part of the world, she can.

“I’m excited about just a new experience,” she said. “This is going to be a whole new world, so I think that’s awesome. I’m stepping into a classroom of people I’ve never met before, and that’s going to be brand new.”

In her classroom in Africa, Durk will set up all 13 first-day-of-school pictures, bringing her experiences and relationships from Missouri with her. Then, when she meets her new students, she’ll take a picture with them. She’ll frame it and put it behind her desk. The start of her next, big adventure.

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