Laws and Ideas

Core Concepts: Laws vs. Ideas

• Formal rules written down and enforced by governments, schools, or institutions.
• They carry consequences and protections—who can do what, when, and how.
• They shape daily life, often created without little people at the table.

• Hopes, beliefs, and proposals about how things could be better.
• They live in conversations, classrooms, stories, and community meetings.
• Every law began as someone’s idea—fair or unfair.

• Adults discuss, draft, and vote—often in spaces children cannot enter.
• Voices with more power, money, or status are heard first.
• Little people feel the impact of laws they never got to help design.

Use this sheet to ask: whose ideas are turning into laws, and whose ideas are missing—especially for little people.