Murirangawhenua and Mahuika, the text shows how disability was often associated with wisdom and valued knowledge in te ao tawhito. It then traces the shift to colonial and medical views in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when disabled people were often excluded from education, work, and immigration. The text follows the development of disability rights movements and organisations such as the Disabled Persons Assembly, highlighting how disabled people have worked to improve equality and inclusion. Rich in historical detail and real-life examples, From Darkness into the Light supports students to understand how attitudes toward disability have changed over time in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

The text is well suited to integrated literacy and social sciences learning, supporting inquiry into social change and human rights in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This pack contains wide range of response activities including:

Two complete lesson slide decks. Each slide deck is fully structured and ready to teach, including:

• Clear WALT (Learning Intentions) and Success Criteria
• Engaging ‘Do Now’ warm-up activities
• Guided exploration of key historical content
• Explicit teaching of historical concepts (perspectives, cause and consequence, significance, continuity and change)
• Vocabulary development embedded throughout
• Opportunities for structured discussion and critical thinking
• Exit tickets to check for understanding

A Comprehensive Response Activity Pack - A wide range of purposeful activities that reinforce both historical inquiry skills and literacy development, including:

• A wide range of higher order thinking activities
• Perspective-taking and bias exploration activities
• Structured paragraph and extended writing scaffolds
• Vocabulary and language feature work
• Comprehension and inference tasks
• Cloze activities to consolidate key content
• Critical thinking and discussion prompts
• Independent or small-group response options

Key words include: Aotearoa New Zealand histories, ableism, accessibility, attitudes to disability, belonging, change over time, colonial New Zealand, community, disability, disability rights, Disabled Persons Assembly, equality, historical perspectives, human rights, inclusion, mātauranga Māori, Māori perspectives, New Zealand Sign Language, pūrākau, social change, social model of disability, te ao tawhito, traditional knowledge, wellbeing