Schools Role in Building the Students Character (by Sirdjanul Ghufron) s_ghufron@yahoo.

com
The job of a school is to provide students with knowledge and skills and to build character and instill virtue. (Thomas J Sergiovanni)

Introduction. To some people, schools might be seen as institutions which gives the students knowledge in the form of academic achievement. One might be considered successful if he can finish his/her studies in due time with flying colors. Parameters of success have often been oriented to the subject-related achievement which can bee seen from the GPA (Grade Point Average) obtained within a particular curricular activities.

It might not be an exaggeration to say that, to some extent, the overall true necessities of life have been neglected in educational activities. To live a decent life, one needs life skills. A person needs to be able to interact and get accepted within a particular community. He or she needs to know how to treat problems which are inevitable in his or her life. One needs to have the ability to see his actual potential and to get his mind set in such a way as to empower oneself to survive and live a happy life. All of these valuable tools of life have seldom been mentioned in school-related events for they have been focused too much on the academic achievement.

With such a problem in mind, I would like to present suggestions to share among the fellow teachers, educators and educational planners about the importance of integrating moral values within the school curriculum. For practical reasons, I will focus on the first skill mentioned above, that is, the need to be able to interact and get accepted within the students community. In other words, after graduating from a school, a student is expected to have adequate knowledge and a state of mind which enables him or her to have acceptable behavior to get him or herself to be accepted within the community where he or she lives. It is true that some schools have got religion subject and civic, but these two subjects perse, which may cover no more than four hours a week may not be enough to guarantee the students to have basic morality sufficient to make them accepted in the community.

Apart from the religion subject and civic, a school provides a lot of tools which are ready to use. As tools, they can be beneficial to the students if they are properly used or manipulated. This can be classified into three. Good examples from the teachers or other staff at schools who get in touch with the students every day, the environment which the students are regularly exposed to and the supra-curricular lesson, that is, all the moral lessons generated from any subject within a school curriculum. This paper will discuss these three things in further details.

Teachers and other school staff as good examples. Children tend to do what they see rather than what others ask them to do (Readers Digest). This means that students will take after what they often see around them. Since some of the students lives are spent at school, teachers and other school staff have a lot of opportunities to be the models of the students behavior, good or bad. If the teacher uses good words when speaking to the students, the latter will get used to speaking politely. If they behave rudely, the students may have strong tendency to be rude to others. One popular Indonesian proverb says Guru kencing berdiri, murid kencing berlari. This can be literally translated into: If the teacher makes his pee in standing position, the student will make a pee in the running position. This implies that teachers are the models for the students. Teachers are not to behave badly in front of the students. Otherwise the students will behave worse. Among Javanese community, the word guru is falsely abbreviated to digugu lan ditiru which means the one who you are supposed to obey and to take after. A good example is the best sermon. (Thomas Fuller, quotes from yahoo). In one school in Indonesia, the school principal has instructed the students to call everyone within the school including the administrative staff and the janitor ustadz(literally means teacher). The implication of this policy is to get everyone to be a teacher who is supposed to give good example to the students. The principal has a strong belief that teaching can be done not only in the classroom but everywhere. If the students go to the library to borrow some books, the library attendants can teach them by speaking politely. This teaches the students the use of good words. The librarian, the school canteen attendant, the school cooperative attendant, the school clerk or whoever is in charge of giving service to the students can also show the students smiling face while giving service to the students. This implies that he is

happy and loves his job. This will give the lesson to the students the meaning of syukur (to be grateful) to God who has bestowed on him that particular position. He is to speak politely in order to give positive exposure to the pupils. No matter what his position is, he can be a teacher who can teach the students good conduct by giving positive example. Values are to be caught not taught (an old saying in Venkataiah, 1998)

Using the physical environment.

I remember being trapped in a traffic jam one hot summer day in my car with no aircon along a dirty road. To make it even worse, I observed that the gas tank was nearly empty. Then I found myself prone to get angry. I started to punch the steering wheel. I got frustrated. Being thirsty, I took a can of coke I had in the car. I drank it out and threw the can out of the window. If you ask me why I was angry, why I was worried and why I littered the road by throwing a can out of the car window, I will surely blame the environment. The same thing may happen in the classroom. Crowded and hot classroom will evoke unwanted behavior from the students. Filthy floors and playing grounds will compel the students to throw away rubbish everywhere. In other words, the physical environment of a school has a significant effect on the students behavior.

Spaces and places can evoke emotional responses and elicit or inhibit behavioral responses (Lewis,1977). Pupil disruptive behavior in our nation's schools has become a serious educational problem (Cramer, 1976). Educators and school facility planners should be able to better design or redesign classrooms capable of producing desirable and more predictable student behaviors. Regarding school size, Bailey (1970) indicated that poor school facilities were considered a major cause of behavioral disruptions in schools. He noted "overcrowding together with its attendant noise and fatigue provide a ripe climate for disruption" (p.28). in http://www.coe.uga.edu/sdpl/researchabstracts/behavior.html Similar findings on the effect of the school environment are stated as follows: The classroom temperature, lighting and air quality would appear to have some effect on the learning environment (McGuffey, 1982). In addition, the cleanliness, orderliness and character that a facility exudes is perceived by teachers to influence children's behavior (Lackney, 1996). in http://schoolstudio.engr.wisc.edu/placemakers.html

Due to the great pressure of the educational system which place the GPA (Grade Point Average) gain as the only parameter in making school assessments, educational endeavor has been focused on the papedagogical issues. The physical-spatial context in which the teachinglearning process occurs has been neglected. (Loughlin & Suina, 1982; Weinstein, 1981, in http://schoolstudio.engr.wisc.edu/placemakers.html In order to maximize the development of the students positive behavior, therefore, focus should also be directed towards the attempts of making the comfortable, stress-free and clean environment. Classroom physical comfort can avoid disruptive behavior. Clean environment stimulate the students awareness of the importance of cleanliness.

Integrating moral messages into the school subjects. In line with the fact that school environment has significant effect on the students behavior, school subjects should have more. School subjects have something to do with people and are related to human needs. Language teaching material, for instance, is closely related to culture. Readings such as those containing moral messages can be included within the teaching syllabus. Students activities for language lesson can also deal with the needs of the people. Science contains a lot of messages related to the super natural power, The God. Working on human anatomy, for example, students will see the complexities of the human body, say the nervous system, which is beyond the human mind. This is expected to increase the students belief in God which, in turn, will motivate the students to behave in accordance with religious values.

Indeed, when well organized, learning activities provide the learners not only the knowledge, information or skills, but also moral values the learners need in their lives. Philosopher Michael Oakeshoft (1989) claims that there is something else in learning than the acquisition of information. (in Hansen, 2001) By nature, some school subjects by themselves are sources of moral values. Its the teacher who has a great opportunity to get the subjects they teach connected to the moral values so as to enable them to acquire good morality during the learning activities.

In science,., pursuit of truth, spirit of inquiry, cooperative efforts, logical thinking and reasoning, neatness etc. can be relevantly inculcated. Similarly in Mathematics, neatness, precision, accuracy, thinking for problem solving, small family norm etc. can be cultivated. In language, History and geography the gamut of values that can be covered is vast. It has to be pre-planned by every teacher. (Venkataiah, 1998, p 83) Suggestions to use material about people as an important source of thinking about human needs and human rights indicates that moral values can also be acquired through school subjects. Throughout their school years and in all their school subjects, material about people should become an important source for thinking about human needs and human rights and how these can be reflected through acting upon a respect for persons. http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/policy/cels/el6.html#e13e25 Attached are an example of syllabus of English for elementary school year 4 showing the integration of the moral values within teaching activities. Conclusion. In the expense of academic achievement, schools role in building the students character has not become the primary focus of educational endeavor. The strategic position of schools as a catalyst of nations morality has been neglected. As claimed by Thomas J Sergiovanni, the job of a school is not only to provide students with knowledge and skills but also to build character and instill virtue. The latter can be done by focusing on three dimensions within the school. First, teachers and other school staff are expected to function as models. Students are expected to acquire moral values from them. Second, the school physical environment, which has a strong effect not only on the learning effectiveness but also on the students behavior can always be used as support system in character building. Finally, the school subjects which are related to human need can also support the effort of building character. This can be integrated into the learning activities in the form of teaching material or classroom and out of the classroom tasks. Some subjects are, by nature, sources of moral values. Besides the value-laden subjects such as religion and civic, other school subjects can generate moral values. By means of the teachers careful plans, the acquisition of the target moral values is expected to materialize.

These three dimensional endeavor of building character is expected to help enforce the role of schools in building students character.

References.
Hansen, D.T. (2001) Exploring the Moral Heart of Teaching. New York: Teachers College Press. Jago, E and Tanner, K. (1999) Influence of the Physical Environment on the Student Behavior. Retrieved February, 12, 2006, from the University of Georgia Web Site : http://www.coe.uga.edu/sdpl/researchabstracts/behavior.html Lockney, J.A. and Jacobs P.J. Teachers as Placemakers: Investigating Teachers Use of the Physical Learning Environment in Instructional Design. Retrieved February, 12, 2006 from School Design Research Studio Web Ste: http://schoolstudio.engr.wisc.edu/placemakers.html Sergiovanni. T.J.(2006) The Principalship: A Reflective Practice Perspective. Boston: Pearson Education. Understanding the Common Essential Learning: A Handbook for Teachers. Retrieved February, 12, 2006 from Saskatchewan Learning Web Site: http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/policy/cels/el6.html#e13e25