Kamis, 28 Mei 2015

LOCAL WISDOM AS A CHARACTER EDUCATION BASIS (Muchlas Samani*, Warsono, Yuni S. Rahayu, Djodjok Supardjo)



Abstract
Character education program run by Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture in 2010 encountered several obstacles as schools were unable to integrate character education into curriculum.  Schools also got difficulty to employ an appropriate character instructional strategy.  However, some schools that are affiliated with religions proved to be successful in implementing character education. They formulated religious values into their academic culture that were implemented as a part of their curriculum.
As a multi-faith, multiethnic, and multi-culture country, Indonesia is unable to employ such strategy at public schools as their teachers and students come from different faith. Therefore, it is necessary to find out alternative resources serving as the basis of character education.
One of potential alternative resources for character education foundation is local wisdom, which is accepted by local community surrounding schools, and is closely related to local cultures. The research aimed at examining local wisdom from different areas of Indonesia comprising character values that were potentially able to implement at schools.
Gathering from document analyses, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews, the research found that there were various forms of local wisdom including folklores and inspirational quotes. Serving as a basis of social interaction, local wisdom comprised principles of the relationship between a human and God, himself, others, and his environment. From the view-point of its implementation, local wisdom involved principles of how to manage both spiritual, mind, and physical aspects.
The research also found that the local wisdom of most communities in Indonesia have common ground, which are appropriate to be used as core values of character education at schools.  Later, schools integrate the core values in the school culture as part of curriculum.
Keywords: local wisdom, character education

Introduction
In 2010 the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Republic of Indonesia launched a character education program for all levels of education. Actually character education is already there in the curriculum, and even becomes the main aim of Religion and civic education subjects, but the results are not as expected in the curriculum. Many people complain about the behavior of students who are not in accordance with the values of the life of the local area. Therefore, the character education is not a new program, but rather a mainstreaming an old program that has not been successful so far. By mainstreaming the program, it is expected that the character education will be effective and the aim of developing character of the students can be achieved.
The term of character, morals and akhlaq are interpreted as identical by some experts; but there are also those who consider the three terms are different, although overlapping meanings exists (Majid and Andayani, 201: 8-14). In this paper, the three terms are understood as identical, since the focus is character education, with the purpose of how to develop the character of students.
How character is formed? Sudarsono (2009: 79-82) mentions that the character is formed as a combination of self identity with environmental influences. Meanwhile, Schulman and Mekler (1985: 19-120) describes the theory of the three foundation stones of moral development, namely Internalization, empathy, and personal moral standards. There are still many theories proposed by other experts, but it can be concluded that character can be taught, although there is an inborn component.
How important the character education is, so that some experts like Lapsley (2008: 30) states that the moral formation of children is one of the foundational goals of formal education. In Indonesian context Ki Hajar Dewantara (2004: 14-15), the Father of Indonesian Education, says that education is a growing effort to promote character (inner strength and character), mind (Intellectual) and the child's body. Each of which should not be separated so as to advance the children perfection of life.  Even the National Law on Educational System states that the purpose of education is to develop students' potentials to become a man of faith and obedience (taqwa) of God Almighty, noble, healthy, knowledgeable, skilled, creative, independent, and become democratic and responsible citizens. Five out of the eight goals of education in Indonesia  are closely related to character.
Nearly two years, the program was implemented, schools had difficulty how to integrate with the existing curriculum. Teachers also had difficulty how to teach character which is not only for knowledge but becoming a real behavior. As mentioned by Linkona (1991: 51-62) a character education should not stop at only a knowledge (moral knowing), but should be continued to create an awareness that it should be implemented (the moral feeling) and at last, with own consciousness, it will be done in daily life (moral action).
Teachers’ efforts to insert character’s aspects in topics of the subjects they taught was only up to the knowledge (moral knowing), but has not been able to change everyday behavior as a form of moral action. In-depth interviews with students also found out that most of the students knew most aspects of character, but they did not feel obliged to implement the aspects of the character (moral feeling).
However, studies conducted by the Character Education Development Team of the Ministry of Education and Culture found that there were schools that successfully implement character education, even since before the launch of the character education program (Samani and Haryanto, 2011). These schools are schools that have affiliation with a particular religion. Character education in schools is manifested in the form of school culture that is associated with the values of the religious affiliation of the schools. For example, the character of respect for teachers and elders were grown by relating that the attitude was a religious obligation. The character of maintaining cleanliness is associated with the teaching that it is part of faith. Thus implementing the character aspects is understood as a religious character.
In these schools, religious values adopted are transformed into rules, programs and even a culture in the school environment. Thus a process of enculturation occurs, because students experience a habituation along with the building of values so that it becomes a process of enculturation. The program becomes more effective due to such schools where school leaders and teachers in general are devout religion believers, so they can be an model for their students. As extracted from the book of Yudi Latif (2014) that character building needs springs of model.
The problem that arises for public schools or schools which are not affiliated to certain religion is on the values referenced in building school culture. Some people, perhaps including Yudi Latif (2014) considers that Pancasila (Indonesian Five Principles or National Phylosophy) values can be used as a reference. But many teachers agree that the values are too abstract and not easy to find real practice in everyday life as example. Consequently, character education runs as ungrounded knowledge and is not to be implemented in daily life.
The aims of this  study is to find the source of the values that are suitable for the reference of character education that can be integrated into  the subjects and also can be a reference to build a school culture (Balibang Dikbud, 2011). Moreover, the values are expected to be easily understood by students and easily contextualized with students’ daily life. One alternative is the local wisdom (local wisdom).
Local wisdom has been rooted in tradition and has even become part of the local culture. Therefore, it can be ascertained that the local wisdom is easily understood by children of elementary to senior high school. Moreover, usually the local wisdom has implementation examples, whether it is in the form of folklore or wise words.
The further problem is that Indonesia is a country of multi-races, multi-ethnics, multi-religions and multi-cultures, so almost every region has a different local wisdom. If then this will be used as a reference in national character education, it is certainly very risky, because it is very likely that there is a contradicting local wisdom between one region to another.
Therefore, this study explores a variety of local wisdom; it explores the basic values contained in it, and expects to find common values (common ground) that can later be used as values in character education. If the common values can be found, then the character education will have the same basic values for all regions, and each region will be able to associate these basic values with its local wisdom.
This study was done in 30 regions which are considered to have different characteristic of local wisdom, so that various values were represented. The regions are: (1) Banda Aceh - Aceh, (2) North Sumatra - Batak, (3) West Sumatra - Minang, (4) Jambi - Malay, (5) Palembang, (6) Lampung, (7) West Jawa - Banten, (8) Jakarta - Betawi, (9) Central Java - Banyumas, (10) East Java - Samin, (11) East Java - Tengger, (12) Central/East Java -Mataraman/Ngawi), (13) West Kalimantan - Singkawang, (14) West Kalimantan - Sambas, (15) East Kalimantan - Kutai, (16) South Kalimantan - Banjar, (17) Central Kalimantan - Dayak, (18) North Sulawesi - Minahasa, (19) Gorontalo, (20) Central Sulawesi - Kaili, (21) South Sulawesi - Bugis, (22) South East Sulawesi - Buton, (23) Central/Southeast Sulawesi - Bajo, (24) Bali (25) Nusa Tenggara - Sasak, (26) East Nusa Tenggara - Flores, (27) Maluku - Ambon, (28) Maluku - Ternate, (29) Papua - Sentani, (30) Papua - Fakfak.
The study towards documents, observations and interviews with local societies found that local wisdom may be in the form of either: (1) custom and tradition, (2) ethics and social manners, (3) utterances and politeness (4) patterns of social relationships, (5 ) kinship and mutual cooperation, (6) the relationship of parents with children, (7) law and justice, (8) education and science, (9) honesty and virtue, (10) life attitude and struggles, (11) trust and faith, (12) prudence and introspective, (13) leadership and management, (14) moral  development and personality, (15) deliberation and democratic, (16) work ethic and attitude, (17) the avoided misconduct, (18) life survival strategy, and (19) the humanity duties and responsibilities.                      
Exploration of local wisdom in that 30 regions concluded a resemblance from one region to another, although there are regions that have special emphasis on its local wisdom. For example Minang community (West Sumatra) emphasizes more on intelligence to face life, which is reflected in the famous phrase "hiduik baraka, baukue jo bajangka" meaning a suggestion to use reason and future thinking in life. Lampung society emphasizes kinship and upholds dignity. Banyumas community, although is still part of the Javanese which is feudalism, it emphasizes on a high value of equality. Samin (East Java) emphasizes simplicity and patience, and Gorontalo people greatly attempts to correct misconduct.                                
Although it seems different, there are universal values in the regions’ local wisdom.           For example, the character of upholding equality which is emphasized in Banyumas society is also owned by the Minang community, although without emphasis. While the values of simplicity which is emphasized in the Samin community turns out to be existed in Gorontalo community although it is not emphasized.          
When it is examined more deeply it was found that the values embodied in the life of local wisdom always have a way of life related with the relationship between man with God, with himself, with another man (society) and with the environment. These relationships are interconnected and mutually influenced as seen in Figure 1 below.


 






Figure 1. Human Relation in Local Wisdom                    
An understanding of human existence turns to develop local wisdom about how man should behave as God’s creature (hamba) and it decides the whole value systems in local wisdom. How man behaves to others, to himself and to the environment always inspired by the view of life as a God’s creature (hamba). Meanwhile, the behavior of how man behaves to others, to himself and to the environment is mutually interrelated.
As mentioned earlier, the values of the characters contained in the local wisdom are many and various among regions, but these values can be categorized based on each implementation in life. There are a number of characters values which are associated with the mind and is personal, there are a number of values related with the character but it is social, there are a number of character values related with a conscience (heart), there are also a number of character value related with conscience (heart) but it is social. If those aspects of character of the local wisdom are illustrated in the four groups, it may be seen as Figure 2.                          
                        


Mind
Heart1
personal
intelligent, critical, creative, innovative, curious, open-minded, productive, future-oriented, and reflective
(represented by smart)
honest, trustworthy, fair, responsible, empathetic, risk-taking, self-sacrificing, and patriotic spirit
(represented by honest)
social
clean and healthy, discipline, sportive, tough, reliable, resilient, friendly, cooperative, determinative, competitive, and cheerful.
(represented by tough)
friendly, respectful, tolerant, caring, mutual assistance, give priority to the public interest, proud to use the language and local products.
(represented by care)





Figure 2 : Character Aspects in Local Wisdom
This study aims to find the values of the character of the local wisdom as common value which can be easily applied in education in schools. Through focus group discussions with teachers and other education stakeholders at school level, it was produced four basic values that each represents mind-personal that is smart, mind-social that is tough, heart-personal that is honest and heart-social that is care. This is illustrated in Figure 2.
To ascertain whether the four aspects of the character would be received by the stakeholders of education, a series of discussions were conducted to discuss it. It was even presented in the national discussion forum attended by the Head of Education Office from Provinces/Districts/Cities across the country of Indonesia, the public university rectors, and other educational figures. In general, the four aspects of the character can be accepted as  basic character in character education, although there are additions in accordance with the characteristics of the local community.
Thus, honest, smart, tough and care become the basic aspects of the character that will be implemented in schools. Because the four derived from local wisdom, the schools are expected to easily relate those with the values of life that already exist and thrive in the region. It should be noted that the schools can add other aspects that are considered essential for the surrounding community. But the four basic aspects of character should be the main reference.
Learning from successful schools that have implemented character education, the four basic aspects of character must be integrated into all activities in schools, so as to build school culture. Therefore, all teachers must integrate those aspects of characters in the teaching-learning process reinforced with appropriate local wisdom values. At a suitable subject, integration can be as the substance but for other subjects it may be included teaching-learning process.
All extra-curricular activities, such as sports, arts, martial, scouts, etc., should also include the growth those aspects of the character, and from the successful schools that has the experience to develop character, extra-curricular activities is indeed very effective to grow the character.


 





Figure 3. The Implementation of Character Education at Schools

Above all, the aspects of the character that derive from the local wisdom should be used as a reference of all the rules and policies of the school. All rules and policies should contain the values of honesty; intelligence growth, toughness and concern for others. All school leaders, teachers and employees should be a role model for students in the implementation of the four characters in everyday life.
Modeling is very important, because some experts say that character is not easily taught, it is more easily transmitted. Thus, teachers must implement character first, before teaching it (Zamroni, 2011: 179), and the four aspects of the character should be used as a school culture that is supported by exemplary school leaders, teachers and school employees.



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