Character Building

The Importance of Character Building at School

            Indonesia is a rich country. The human resources in Indonesia attain in large amount, but what a pity, there are many corruption cases happened. From this thing we know that Indonesia needs high qualified from human resources. To fulfill those things, it needs a real action, one of the ways is through education. As all know that education is important part in nation progress, but this time the orientation of education is like a shadow. Many new forming systems happened to make orientation of education clear. Now, one of the new forming systems that often to talk is ‘Character Building’. Character building is an investment system of character values to school family that include of knowledge consciousness and action to commit these values, towards the God, our self, peers, environments, also the nation that make perfect human (Prasetya, A & Revasinta, E.(2011)). The character building at school is important for this time, but do we know why character building at school is important?  There are three reasons that become a background from the importance of character building at school, such as the ineffective of character education at home, the unsuccessful of educational system in Indonesia and the relation with purpose of education in Indonesia.

            Character education in basic rule is not only become the task of the school, but also the task of parents at home, family and society, but in fact this is separated. Character education in family environment does not give good contribution in character building of children. Many parents do not think that character education is important for their children. They prefer spending a lot of time for working and getting much money. This thing has relation with parent’s orientation towards education. They just emphasize the academic area and make a good assessment just from hard skill and intellectual intelligence. They have an opinion that there is no problem if their children have good mark only in academic result and it is good according to parents opinion. This perception actually make the task of family to build the children character ineffective. They do not understand the importance of character building for their children, but actually the character education has important part in decision of success for their children. Character investment in family environment has a big contribution. More than 12 hours children spend their time together with family, but this big part is not used effectively by the parents. Parents also provide the children with everything that their children want, not the children need to be successful in future.

            Character building at school start to develop is not only because of ineffective education in family environment but also from the unsuccessful education system. The educational systems that have ever been used in Indonesia are not successful in building of children character. Many people said that education system in Indonesia has failed to build the character of children. Many people who graduate from school have good brain but they do not have good intelligence and their behavior is not good also. This thing happened because the purpose is not correct. The education systems used just have orientation in quality of academic and emphasize in intellectual intelligence. As a consequence the children cannot follow the system in school and indirectly they think that they are not smart enough. Moreover the use of rank system causes the decreasing self-esteem of children. This system of surely has negative influence toward the character developing of children, because from the beginning their confidence has been killed. It can make a situation where the children will get stress that continuously because they are not confident. These conditions usually push the children to show negative action in adolescent age. Because of that the character building need to be included in education system at school. Character building is the great goal from the right education.

            Moreover, there is a basic reason of character building at school if we look at the relation with Indonesia education purpose itself. Character building would carry a forming of generation that is not only great in intellectual intelligence (IQ) but also in emotional intelligence (EQ). It is in line with UU No.20 Tahun 2003 pasal 3 about National Education System which states that civilization of the nation’s dignity in the context of the developing nation to be a person who is noble, religious to God the Almighty one, good attitude, and creative, health in physic, intellectual, emotional, social and cultural. They also should be citizens who are democratic and responsible. So the character building at school support the formed of generation that are not only great in intellectual intelligence (IQ) but also in emotional intelligence (EQ) and we can get the main idea that successful person not only depend on intellectual intelligence but also the emotional intelligence. This is also supported by Daniel Goleman who mention “success person in community following the rule of 80 / 20. This rule has meaning that in fact 80 % successful are influenced by emotional intelligence (EQ), and only 20% of successes are influenced by intellectual intelligence (IQ)”.

            It is clear that character building at school is important. The importance is caused by the reason behind this system. The reason is about the ineffective character education at home, so it makes character building at school have an important part. Unsuccessful education systems that have ever been used in Indonesia is because the incorrect orientation of education from this system. The relation of education purpose in Indonesia that mention the importance of emotional intelligence and intellectual intelligence in the context to produce good person with good character. After we all understand about the reason, it is better if we start to repair ourselves and our generation through the character building at school to make a nation with good character, good attitude, physical health, emotional intelligence and intellectual quality, social relationship, moral because we have known the reason. We must understand that ‘intelligence plus character is the goal of true education’ (Luther King, M).

References:

Akhmadsudrajat’s.( 2011 Desember 8). Pendidikan karakter di smp. Retrieved    December8,2011,from:http://akhmadsudrajat.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/pendidikan-karakter-di-   smp

Kompasiana.(2011, Desember 8). Konsep urgensi dan implementasi pendidikan karakter di sekolah. Retrieved December 8, 2011, from : http://edukasi.kompasiana.com/2011/05/27/konsep-urgensi-dan-implementasi-pendidikan-karakter-di-sekolah