Why ‘Like Stars on Earth’ Should Be Mandatory in Every Classroom
There’s a moment early in Like Stars on Earth when eight-year-old Ishaan is sitting in class, staring at the chalkboard. The teacher is explaining something, but the words on the board keep shifting. At least, that’s what it feels like. The camera stays on Ishaan’s face long enough for you to notice he isn’t fooling around. He’s not daydreaming. He’s trying. And failing.
I’ve watched this film with at least four different groups of educators over the years, and every single time, someone in the room goes quiet during that scene. Usually it’s the teacher who has a particular student in mind. Sometimes it’s the parent who suddenly realizes what their child has been trying to say for years.
The film, directed by Aamir Khan, tells the story of Ishaan Awasthi, a boy who struggles with reading, writing, and numbers. His teachers call him lazy. His father calls him a disgrace. His classmates laugh at him. When the pressure becomes too much, his parents send him to a boarding school, where he gets worse before he gets better. It’s only when a new art teacher, Ram Shankar Nikumbh, looks at Ishaan’s notebooks and notices something the others missed that the story changes.
What the art teacher sees isn’t a lack of effort. He sees reversed letters, skipped lines, and a pattern of confusion that looks a lot like dyslexia. He also sees a child who has learned to believe he’s stupid.
I remember sitting in a staff room after the film ended, and one of the younger teachers said, “But how would I even know? I’m not a specialist.” That’s the real value of this film. It doesn’t ask teachers to diagnose anyone. It asks them to stop and pay attention.
In every classroom, there’s an Ishaan. Not every struggling child has a learning difference, but every struggling child has a reason. Sometimes it’s a math concept that moved too fast. Sometimes it’s anxiety. Sometimes it’s a pair of glasses that no one thought to recommend. And sometimes, it’s a brain that processes words differently, not badly, just differently.
What I love about Like Stars on Earth is that it shows the process rather than the conclusion. Nikumbh doesn’t fix Ishaan overnight. He starts by building trust. He tells stories. He plays with him. He explains what it feels like to have letters “dance” on the page, and he shows Ishaan a picture of a child who couldn’t read until he was eleven. He gives him a reason to try again.
That might be the most important lesson for parents and teachers. Before you can help a child learn, you have to help them feel safe enough to learn. The practical work comes later. But the emotional groundwork has to be laid first.
I’ve borrowed that idea in my own classroom. When a student starts falling behind, I try to stop asking “Why aren’t you trying?” and start asking “What’s making this hard?” It sounds simple, but the shift changes everything. The child stops defending themselves and starts thinking about the problem with you instead of against you.
Here are a few things that have actually worked for me, all of them inspired by this film.
First, when a child repeatedly misreads simple words, I don’t ask them to “sound it out” again. That’s like asking someone with bad eyesight to look harder. Instead, I ask them to point at each word as they read it. That one simple change shows me where the breakdown is happening. If they’re skipping words, guessing, or losing their place even with their finger on the page, that tells me more than any worksheet.
Second, I pay attention to how a child responds when I read aloud. If a child can understand a story perfectly when I read it, but can’t decode the same words on their own, that’s a clue. The thinking brain is fine. The reading pathway is struggling. That distinction matters.
Third, I keep a few simple tools around. Colored overlays, for example. Some children experience visual stress when reading black text on white paper, and a colored transparency can make the words stop moving. It doesn’t work for everyone, and it isn’t a cure, but it’s a low-effort thing to try. If it doesn’t help, we move on. If it does, we’ve just found a small doorway back into reading.
Fourth, I talk to parents differently. Instead of saying, “Your son is struggling with reading,” I’ll say, “I noticed something today. When he read the word ‘was’ as ‘saw,’ I asked him to look again, and he said it looked the same. I think it might help to have his vision checked, and I’d also like to try having him read with a bookmark to guide the lines.” That kind of concrete message gives parents something to do rather than something to worry about.
The film also deals with something harder to talk about: the damage that happens when adults give up on a child. Ishaan’s father is not a villain. He’s a man who believes discipline and hard work are the answer. He cares about his son, but he can’t see past his own expectations. That’s true for many of us, myself included.
I’ve been the teacher who sent a student out into the hallway because I was tired. I’ve been the parent who said, “You’re not listening,” when my child was actually trying to tell me they couldn’t understand. The film doesn’t let us look away from those moments. It shows how a child internalizes every sigh, every rolled eye, every sharp comment.
But it also shows how much difference one adult can make. Nikumbh isn’t a miracle worker. He’s an observer. He notices. He sits beside Ishaan in the art room and lets him paint what he feels. He doesn’t force him to speak before he’s ready. He gives him time.
That’s why I believe watching this film should be part of how we train teachers and how we prepare parents. Not as a one-time screening, but as a shared reference point. When I talk about a struggling child with a colleague, I can say, “Remember Ishaan?” and we both know what I mean. It gives us a language for a conversation that’s often too painful to start.
I’m not saying every school should show it on the first day and call it done. Mandatory doesn’t mean magical. But if every teacher, every assistant, every principal, and every parent watched this film once, I think we’d stop asking “What’s wrong with this child?” and start asking “What happened to this child, and what does this child need?”
The film doesn’t end with Ishaan becoming a top student. It ends with him making progress, painting a picture, and smiling in a way he almost forgot was possible. There’s no clean resolution. His dyslexia doesn’t disappear. The school system doesn’t suddenly become perfect. But he’s no longer alone.
That’s the part that stays with me. Because in real classrooms, that’s often all we can do. We can’t diagnose every condition or fix every gap. But we can make sure no child feels invisible. We can ask better questions. And we can sit with a kid who’s struggling long enough that they believe they’re worth the effort.
I still don’t have all the answers. I misread situations sometimes. I default to frustration faster than I’d like. But when I catch myself doing that, I think of Ishaan’s face at that chalkboard, and I slow down.
That, more than anything, is why I think this film belongs in every classroom. Not just for the children who learn differently, but for the rest of us who need to see learning in a different way.
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