Men and women can be best friend?

Have I posted on this before? I could not remember but this topic had brought dissatisfaction amongst my students. We started the issue with simple questions. It was just a light discussion when I had started to provoke them on which stand they belong to. Do they believe there will be no lovey dovey between man and woman in a relationship? Case in point, between two best friend from different gender. Few of them believe that man and women can never be best friend and some others hold on their belief that man and woman can be best friend.

So, I divided them into four big groups where two groups proposing the motion and another two groups opposing the motion. The discussion was alive. They came out with lots of points and stands. Some of the points are taken from their psychology class and some of them came out with religious point of views. Later on, I   involved them with open debating where they had to defend their points.

The kids really did their work. Though I can see some of them struggled to let out their points and even being attacked while delivering the points, but I am proud of them. The simple topic has lead to massive discussion. There were arguing with each other. We laughed out loud together. We respect each other. The kids kept on defending their point on man and woman can be best friend as long as they know their intention. They said that nothing will happen if both parties know their limit. They won't go overboard if they are aware of those limitations. However, the other sides pointing out that love comes naturally. We don't have any idea when will it comes and to whom it may occur. They also mentioned that as man and woman are completing each other, they might fall towards each other. The debate was going uber expectation where I have to stop them. We ended up the session by wrapping arguments from each groups. I think it was beautifully wrapped up as the last person mention on some hadith which I couldn't recall. However, that girl made some advices to the rest of the classmates to take care and be careful in making friends.

Well, I learnt a lot from them. I can see their level of thinking where they have been actually omitting some values on Islam. When they provoke things on religion, when they see nothing's wrong, when they believe on their young heart, when they behave like nobody to respect but I learn the most that kids will be kids. As someone who is more mature, I have to tolerate and consider that. Anyway, I had fun!

p.s: can we be best friend?