Conference Stream: Communication and Youth
Communicating Character Education
(Case Study: Student in Darul Marhamah
Islamic Girls Boarding School Cileungsi)
Presented in Asian Media Information and Communication Centre
22nd International Conference
4-7 July 2013
By: Leila Mona
ABSTRACT
Although Indonesia has
been independence for sixty eight years
ago, there are still alot of problems such as corruption,
violence, and mass fights. Those problems could be related to character building. According to the National Policy of National
Character Development (2010), based on its complexity, the development of
national character encompasses seven domains: 1) the scope of the family, 2)
the scope of the education unit, 3) the scope of government, 4) the scope of
the civil society, 5) the scope of the political community, 6) the scope of
business and industry, and 7) the scope of the mass media. This study focused on the development
of character through the scope of the education unit. The reason is because human consciousness, the 'me', should be built and nourished through
the use of learning opportunities. The development of character through
education has a significant progress.
Lickona (1991), Berkowitz (2008) and Ganiem
(2012) are among the researchers who confirm that character
education is a powerful remedy to address moral decadence. Character education improves
school climate; students become more polite and social; the use of drug and
violence decrease; academic motivation increases; emotional competence
increases. Those results are gain through inculcating the
character targetted.
Inculcating character is inseparable from communication. The effects of
communication are cognitive, affective, and conative (Petty and Cacioppo, 1980). According to Hovland (1953), attitude change should be understood as
a response to the actions of persuasive communication. Selected efforts such as integrating the
concept of character in teaching moduls in class and school programs, are some strategies
used by teacher or management of school, but this is not enough. The synergy
between all stakeholders include the students themselves will be positive to
expedite the result. This study propose
to focus the optimalization of peergroup of students to inculcate characters
among themselves. The strategy used is mentoring and monitoring.
Mentoring
is an
activity done by a person (mentor) for another
person (mentee) so
that the character values is
internalized. This process is in line with the group communication. The research
of Dickens
and Heffernan (in Golberg and Larson, 2006:31-32) confirms
the positive results through the mentoring process.
Monitoring concept for inculcating the character education is
inspired by panopticon (Foucault, 1977). The concept is taken from the field of
architecture that allows prison guard to oversee prisoners without being
noticed by the inmates. The discipline is also the key to implement character
education. The students is suppported to
follow the rules which reflect values. The student will find himself or herself constantly monitored for the
implementation of the values of characters through disciplining his/her body.
The people who monitor the students is
their peergroup.
The research was done in Darul Marhamah Islamic
Girls Bording School, Cileungsi. The main issue resided in the character implementation
in school institutions. It
involved various strategy to implement the character values (discipline,caring,
fairness, trustworthiness, neatness, creativity,
religious, honest, patience, smart,
leadership and friendhip). Data was collected by participant observation, interviews, focus group discussions,
and secondary data.
In conclusion, the result of the study is that the internalization of character is effective by using mentoring and monitoring. The students
was supported to be discipline to create a docile body in order to
implement the character values.
Inculcating character value involves peergroup is effective because between
friends, students have certain agreed rules, so it has a high value of persuasion. The sharing of values are more convincing because it is provided by the peers themselves. Therefore, strengthening through
peer mentoring and
monitoring are significant
to inculcate the character
values. The effect of communication is more to the cognitive and affective, and
those leads to the conative effect.
