Tracie Moana Pile

Ngāti Awa

Pūkenga

Bachelor Mātauranga Māori, Postgraduate Diploma Teaching (Secondary)

Tracie Moana Pile was born, raised, and schooled in Māngere, South Auckland alongside her three older brothers. Her parents were part of a Ngāti Awa contingent that migrated to Auckland for work in the 1960s.

Tracie’s father had office work and her mother worked in factories. Later in life her father went back to learn his reo and completed a Diploma in Teaching. He taught in Māori Medium for ten years before moving to relief teaching. Her parents were lifetime members of the Manukau Rovers Rugby Club in Māngere and raised their tamariki playing netball, rugby, and touch rugby. Her mother was still playing touch when she was in her 50s. Her dad coached and managed most of his life. In the 1970s her parents and other wider whānau members of Ngāti Awa and Mātaatua Waka fundraised over many years to erect Mātaatua Marae ki Māngere, as a place where those who had migrated from the Bay of Plenty would have somewhere to congregate for hui ora and hui mate. Her dad was the Chair for some time and as her parents aged, her brother, cousins and Tracie stepped into their roles on the committee. Most of their homes were within a 5km radius of Mātaatua Marae in Māngere so they grew up around their marae.   

At school Tracie’s dream was to become a secretary. She left Māngere College to attend a one-year secretarial course at the Manukau Institute of Technology and following this she found work as a secretary. It was at Manukau City Council, in her early 20s, that the desire to learn te reo Māori grew. She contacted her kuia, Mīria Simpson in Wellington and moved to live with her. She brought Tracie to Te Wānanga o Raukawa in 1998 to enrol in Mātauranga Māori. Tracie graduated with a Bachelor of Mātauranga Māori (BMM) in 2000 and worked within the Tari Mātauranga Māori until 2003 before moving to Blenheim with her soon to be husband. When the marriage broke up in 2006, she moved back to Auckland and then over to Brisbane for a few years.

It was when her son Hawaiki turned five and she was sitting at his kura that she realised she wanted to become a kaiako so that she could learn and grow alongside her son.

In 2015, Tracie enrolled at Ako Mātātupu – Teach First NZ. This was an intensive two-year career changer programme into teaching where you learn to teach at the same time as you are teaching. She taught in Puutake Te Wāhanga Māori at James Cook High School in Manurewa for four years before moving to Ōtaki in 2019. She then taught at Horowhenua College for a year and then at Te Kura ā Iwi o Whakatupuranga Rua Mano for three years. 

Tracie came back to Te Wānanga o Raukawa in 2023 as the Pūkenga for a new pilot programme Poutuarongo Whakaakoranga Wharekura (PWW) or Bachelor of Education, Wharekura. This is an Employment Based Initial Teacher Education (EBITE) Programme that supports kaiāwhina who have been working within kura-ā-iwi for at least two years, to study at the same time as being in the classroom getting on the job teaching experience. The programme has a rigorous entry requirement. If successful, the next two years sees students teaching in the class with a Limited Authority to Teach (LAT) for which they will receive a salary, as well as studying with course fees fully paid. There is a wrap-around support system for each tauira from within their kura and here at Te Wānanga o Raukawa to help them achieve their teacher certification.

With a love for the work she does, Tracie believes everyone will win with the new wharekura teaching programme, the students, their whānau, their kura, their hāpori and Te Wānanga o Raukawa. The students will become qualified teachers while earning a salary and without the burden of a student loan. Tracie’s hope for her students is that they dig deep for their two years of study. “It will all be worth it once they become qualified teachers. Everyone wins, especially them.”

 Tūwhitia te hopo, marangaitia te angitū.