In the 2016 film Sully, based on the true story of US Airways Flight 1549’s emergency landing on the Hudson River, there’s a powerful scene where the pilot, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (played by Tom Hanks), challenges a computer simulation that claims the plane could have safely made it to a nearby airport after losing both engines. The simulation seems to prove that the emergency landing was unnecessary—that if the pilots had followed the ideal, choreographed response, they would have saved the plane and avoided the drama.

But Sully, representing the human factor in high-stakes situations, asks a critical question: “What about the human aspect of it?” The simulation ignores the chaos, uncertainty, and complexity that occurred in real life. It disregards the fact that, in the heat of the moment, pilots had to make split-second decisions under enormous pressure without the luxury of hindsight. It’s a profound reminder that conflict, ambiguity, and human judgment are crucial components of real-world decision-making. The neatly packaged, pre-determined simulation fails to capture the messy, unpredictable reality that humans had to navigate.

This story reflects a larger issue in education today, where conflict, uncertainty, and human judgment are often sidelined in favor of predictable, structured outcomes. Just like in the Hudson River landing, life and learning are not as simple as simulations or idealized scenarios. This brings us to the critical role of conflict in education, and how the elimination of real, organic challenges from learning environments stifles growth and adaptability.

Conflict as a Learning Catalyst: The Problem with Over-Structuring

In natural systems, conflict is a catalyst for evolution and adaptation. Ecosystems thrive through dynamic interactions between species, balancing cooperation and competition. This natural conflict fosters resilience and growth. Similarly, learning environments should embrace uncertainty, challenges, and even discomfort to foster deep learning.

In modern education systems, however, this natural tension is often removed. Instead of preparing students for the unpredictability of life, education frequently over-structures the learning process to ensure certainty, predictability, and control. But without stress, challenge, or cognitive dissonance—when learners encounter new, conflicting information—students don’t develop the ability to handle ambiguity, make complex decisions, or learn from failure.

The Neglect of Conflict in Education: Consequences

By trying to eliminate conflict from learning environments, we strip away the very mechanisms that help learners grow. Conflict is the natural feedback that forces learners to confront their limits, rethink their assumptions, and develop more resilient cognitive frameworks. Without it, learning becomes fragile, shallow, and limited to rehearsed scenarios, much like the unrealistic flight simulation in Sully.

When conflict is removed, the consequences are clear:

1. Passive Learning: Students are often fed information to memorize and reproduce, rather than engage with it critically or question it. This doesn’t prepare them for real-world problem-solving, where ambiguity, conflicting information, and unpredictable situations are the norm.
2. Fear of Failure: In systems designed for certainty, students are taught to avoid failure. But in reality, failure is a necessary part of learning. In the Sully example, a rigid system would have punished the pilot for not following protocol, even though his real-time, human judgment saved lives. In education, failure should be embraced as an opportunity to learn, not something to be avoided at all costs.
3. Lack of Resilience: Without experiencing challenges or failure, students don’t develop the resilience needed to adapt when faced with the messy, complex problems of the real world. In a structured system that prizes certainty, learners can become fragile, unable to cope with situations that don’t fit into predefined outcomes.

Artificial vs. Organic Conflict

Much like the flight simulation in Sully, many educational environments manufacture conflict in controlled ways. These artificial conflicts are often staged—whether through simulated problem-solving exercises, structured debates, or narrowly defined challenges designed to fit neatly into the curriculum. These can be valuable for skill-building but often fail to reflect the complexity of real-life conflict.

For example, debates in classrooms may help students practice argumentation, but they lack the unpredictability, emotional complexity, and genuine stakes of real-world disagreements. Similarly, simulated ecosystems in biology classes might help students understand principles of predator-prey dynamics, but they don’t capture the depth, unpredictability, or consequences of actual ecological interactions.

When conflict is artificially structured in this way, it loses its power to teach resilience, adaptability, and critical thinking. Real-world problems are rarely neat, and they require learners to grapple with uncertainty and navigate ambiguity in ways that simulations cannot fully replicate.

The Danger of Over-Structuring Conflict

When educational environments become overly structured, they aim to eliminate uncertainty in the name of predictability and control. Much like the rigid flight simulation in Sully, these environments are designed to provide idealized scenarios where conflict is minimized and outcomes are clear. While this might make the learning process seem smooth and efficient, it robs learners of the complexity and unpredictability that they will inevitably face in real-life situations.

This approach leads to fragile learners who excel in controlled environments but struggle to adapt to real-world challenges. Life, much like flying a plane, is filled with unexpected variables, ambiguous choices, and pressures that cannot be fully anticipated. When education focuses on memorization, test-taking, and prescribed paths, students are ill-prepared for the messiness of real-world problem-solving. They are taught to follow protocols and avoid mistakes, rather than to think critically, adapt under pressure, and make decisions with incomplete information.

In natural systems, organisms that thrive are not the ones that follow a rigid, choreographed script but those that are adaptable, resilient, and able to evolve in response to conflict and changing conditions. The same should apply to education. Students who can navigate complexity, solve problems in the face of uncertainty, and adapt to new information or environments are the ones who will succeed, not just in school, but in life.

The Human Element in Learning: Lessons from Sully

In the Sully simulation scene, the investigators showed that, theoretically, the plane could have returned to a nearby airport. But the simulation lacked the human element—the real-time stress, the uncertainty, and the emotional weight of making decisions with people’s lives at stake. Sully’s judgment wasn’t based on an idealized scenario but on the messy, chaotic reality of the moment. He had to consider multiple, conflicting factors under intense pressure, including the safety of passengers, the condition of the plane, and the rapidly changing situation.

This is a powerful metaphor for conflict in education. While simulations and structured learning environments can prepare students to some degree, they lack the human aspect—the unpredictability, the tension, and the complexity of real-world experiences. In real life, conflict isn’t scripted, and students must be equipped to handle the emotional and cognitive challenges that arise from it.

By embracing organic conflict—the kind that arises naturally from navigating difficult, uncertain situations—education can better prepare students for life outside the classroom. Rather than avoiding or minimizing conflict, we should integrate it into learning environments as a key catalyst for growth, much like Sully’s real-time, human decision-making saved lives when the simulation couldn’t.

Conflict and Anti-Fragility in Learning

To build on the concept of anti-fragility, we need to design educational environments where conflict isn’t feared or avoided but leveraged as a tool for growth. In an anti-fragile system, challenges, conflict, and even failure don’t just build resistance; they create opportunities for growth and improvement.

In an anti-fragile learning environment:

• Conflict is embraced: Instead of avoiding conflict, the system recognizes that it’s essential for learning. Students are put into situations where they must deal with ambiguity, uncertainty, and opposing viewpoints, allowing them to develop critical thinking skills and emotional resilience.
• Failure is reframed: Just as Sully’s decision to land on the Hudson was questioned, students should experience failure not as a mark of incompetence but as a necessary step in the learning process. Failure provides immediate, relevant feedback that helps students adjust their approach, rethink strategies, and improve.
• Adaptability is prioritized: Rather than teaching students to simply memorize facts or follow rigid guidelines, anti-fragile learning environments encourage adaptability and problem-solving. These skills are crucial in a world where the problems students will face are likely to be complex, evolving, and uncertain.

Much like in the Hudson River landing, conflict forces us to be creative, adaptive, and resilient. It pushes us beyond the safety of what we know, into the challenging space where real growth happens.

Embracing Conflict in Education

In the same way that Captain Sully’s real-time decision-making was questioned by a rigid, choreographed simulation, modern education often stifles natural conflict in favor of certainty and control. However, as the Hudson River landing demonstrates, real growth and resilience come from navigating the messy, unpredictable aspects of life—not from following scripted responses.

Conflict, uncertainty, and failure are not enemies of learning; they are its most powerful drivers. By allowing students to experience genuine, organic conflict, we can help them become anti-fragile learners who are not only prepared for the complexity and ambiguity of the real world but who thrive in it.

Education should be about embracing the unknown, fostering adaptability, and building resilience through the conflicts and challenges that are part of life. Just like Sully’s remarkable landing, students need the opportunity to make decisions in real-time, face real conflict, and grow stronger because of it.