A student-led framework
Stairs is four rungs and a pledge for students who already use AI and want to stay honest with themselves about what they’re learning.
Why this exists
Anthropic’s April 2025 analysis of a million student conversations with Claude found that almost half were what they called Direct — asking for an answer with little engagement. The largest category of work was creating content. If you skip the part of the task that was meant to teach you, the grade survives and the learning doesn’t. Source.
An MIT Media Lab EEG study in 2025 had one group write essays with ChatGPT, one with a search engine, and one with nothing. The LLM group showed the weakest brain connectivity, the lowest sense of ownership of their own work, and struggled to quote sentences they had just “written.” The brain-only group showed the strongest networks. Source.
A 2025 Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon survey of knowledge workers found that the more confident people were in AI, the less critical thinking they did with it. The confidence you need isn’t in the tool. It’s in the thinking you bring to it. Source.
Where this fits
The Stanford AI Index 2026 puts AI use among U.S. high school and college students at around 80% — roughly double what it was in 2023. Only about half of middle and high schools have any AI policy, and just 6% of teachers say their school’s policy is clear. Nearly half of students said they had wanted to use AI for schoolwork but weren’t sure if it was allowed. Source.
Stairs is what a student can do today, on the assignment in front of them, without waiting for the policy to land.
I’m not against AI. I’m against the version of me that stops thinking because AI is easier.