In late December 2025, protests swept Iran, leading to weeks of mass demonstrations, violent government massacres, and an internet blackout. As of writing, CBC estimates the death toll to be more than 5,000.

The Varsity spoke with professors and students to understand how current events in Iran are reshaping their classroom experiences.

Classroom discussion

Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (NMC) post-doctoral fellow Niyosha Keyzad teaches NMC198H1: Iranian Women Reveal Their Lives: The First Generation, a course about the lives, writing, and social experiences of the “first generation of [Iranian] women to have access to a modern education, and step beyond traditional boundaries.” 

The class explores how women resisted the patriarchal society under Pahlavi rule, and how that shaped women’s resistance to oppression post-Islamic Revolution. “It felt necessary to engage with the ongoing developments, particularly in relation to women’s liberation,” Keyzad wrote in an email to The Varsity.  

Professors say that engaging with current events can deepen students’ understanding of the material in their courses. Department of History and NMC professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi teaches HIS1784H: The Islamic Revolution, a graduate seminar course which provides a comparative exploration of the making of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. 

“This is a course on the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 that created the Islamic Republic, and the movement today is a movement against the Islamic Republic, with the hope of liberating Iran and…creating a new government…So, from that point of view, looking at the revolution, causes of revolution, theories of revolution, how the various phases of that revolution gives us an insight into what is happening today,” Tavakoli-Targhi said in an interview with The Varsity.

 Tavakoli-Targhi describes his classroom as “a free zone. Intellectual interaction, interactional discussion, [where] you have seen different sentiments, different views, highly diverse expression.” To facilitate a discussion of the protests, he incorporated an interactive method into his course. Students in the class share a closed Facebook group for “exchanging information, sharing photos, images, videos” about “this unfolding revolution.” 

Despite the educational value of engaging with these events in real-time, both professors acknowledged the emotional challenges involved. Tavakoli-Targhi explained that discussions about the protests in the classroom are more impassioned.

“The classroom feels more charged,” Keyzad noted, “and it’s clear that the unfolding events are shaping how they think and feel about the material. About half of the students in our class are Iranian, and their grief is palpable.”

Student perspectives 

During a HIS1784H lecture, one PhD student said, “a revolution or something of this essence is unfolding… is not really visible in the sense that it becomes visible later in history, as it is unfolding, it’s very imperceptible.” 

“I’m still kind of lost as to what opinion I want to form… but I’m concerned as to where these protests are going and the aftermath,” another student shared. 

Classroom discussions have also revealed a diverse range of perspectives, with one student observing, “that there really are quite deep political differences among different ethnic groups. It’s not just one voice.” 

Responsibility of educators   

“We have a special responsibility to balance our commitment to critical thinking with space for personal connection,” Keyzad wrote. “Teaching in this context requires us to support students as they process the impact of current events and imagine how they can contribute to a more just and peaceful future.”

Tavakoli-Targhi aims to make classroom discussion about the protests “as scholarly as possible.” 

“I want students who are well-versed into theories, historiography, accounts of the revolution, and competing views, but also informed of particularly what is happening today in Iran.” Tavakoli-Targhi added that he wants his students to “bring their knowledge from outside of class… and take their knowledge of their classroom experience to conversations that they have with their parents [and] with friends.”