I have no shame in admitting that me and my friends had no brains when we were in grade 8. When I look back I feel my grade 4 son is much smarter than what I was at double his age.
My school was run by central government and according to NCERT guild lines, reproduction was taught to us when we were in grade 9. We didn't have slightest of idea about how kids were created. Santosh, a naughty guy educated us fools that holding hangs, hugging and kissing would cause pregnancy and that was the time the co education class of ours was divided into girls and boys section. Guys and girls feared any contact between each other. The same guy who educated us also came up with a plan to avoid pregnancy. He presumed that God, the Creator and destroyer, would help us in keeping away the pregnancy provided we chant his name whenever girls brushed against boys accidentally.
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I don't remember why we believed him so much, but we all followed him blindly. Funny, that guys were more scared of pregnancy that. Girls. I remember this time when I lost all friends because I was a 'Tom Boy' in school and hung around boys only. Now boys feared impregnating me while I myself couldn't consider a girl as my buddy. It really made me cry when I once went to a close buds table to ask him something when he shouted 'god is in the middle' which meant god was a barrier between us. Funny now but heart breaking back then. I was not the only one suffering, but I was the one who had the toughest time with no friends.
It took one complete year for the reproduction chapter to be taught to us fools and we understood that kids are not easy to prepare. But, by then we had built a strong wall between the guys and girls in our class. It was never the same.
How innocent we were to loose some great friendships. I changed school when I was in class 9 and lost touch with my best bud who had distanced himself from me for closely 2 decades. I recently met him at a friend's wedding. He is presently holding a executive position at his workplace while I am a mother of two naughty boys. We chatted about how things have been when we were not in touch and decided that we would always be in from now on.
This made me stick stronger to my decision of educating my son on sex education myself than wait for the school to do it. Simple misunderstanding can ruin some great friendships.