A Systemic Approach to CharacterEducation in Indonesia: A Citizen-Practitioner’s Perspective

(by Suwarsih Madya*)

AbstractPeople develop their character through life experiences second by second, minute by minute, day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year first in their immediate environments, then wider environments, and finally distant environments, which may all now be connected and/or even united by the power of information technology. Character values may be absorbed and internalized both intentionally in the school and probably families (as the writer has herself experienced), but in most cases more naturally outside the school/families. The former is possible with the explicit curriculum in the school, educational programs and/or parents’ intentional efforts, whereas the latter with the hidden or implicit curriculum and/or involvement in real life activities/event. One thing worth noticing is that children may absorb both desired and undesired values in real life outside the school. This phenomenon seems to have happened in the present situation in Indonesia in which young people lack character-related stimulation/inspiration as their older generations experience the weakening and degrading character. Letting this continue happening uncontrollably means creating unconsciously a big threat to character building designed through the explicit and hidden curriculum in the school. Revitalizing character education through a systemic approach seems to be the viable way for the present situation of Indonesian. This paper aims to explore ways of revitalizing character education in this country with its multicultural society. To reach the aim, this paper will discuss the following topics: the contexts of Indonesian character education, learning from experts and practitioners, approaching the Indonesian character education in a systemic manner. All of this ends with concluding remarks.

Key word: Indonesian character education, values, multiculturalism, pluralism

I. Introduction

When I was reviewing literature on character education for purposes of preparing this paper, something was going in my mind and heart, especially reading the words representing the noble values. Talking about education in general and about character education in particular is in fact touching upon our own experiences. This is because we have grown up and developed through education and character education in the widest sense. Upon reflection, I have developed my character through my life experiences second by second, minute by minute, day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year first in my immediate environment, then wider environments, and finally distant environments, which may all now be connected and/or even united by the power of information technology. From my immediate environment, I have learned a lot from my family life experiences in which my parents introduced to us, their children, basic values of life and nationalism/patriotism in the right moments. The basic values instilled by my parents include the following values: liberty, responsibility, fairness, cooperation, sharing experiences, self-awareness, being grateful, equality, nationalism, and “being educated”. I also have taken a similar step to instill these values in my two children.

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In the wider environments, my teachers and some other adult figures also introduced more important values through various activities and the special moments. They made a lot of efforts to instill values similar to those already instilled by my parents and some other values such “being Indonesian”, cultural respect, justice, openness, communication, collaboration, objectivity, and science-orientedness. Finally, in the distant environment abroad, I learned to be more academic and autonomous through my postgraduate studies and learned to be more Indonesian through a number of challenges posed by Australians ignorant of Indonesia. The last point has, however, facilitated me to introduce to them with pride my beloved country and its abundant resources. Now I can feel my own Indonesian character in me.

To my limited observation, the success of instilling values in me has been the factors of determination and consistency in the part of my ‘educators’, especially up to my teenage. When I got older, I became more conscious about the process and I used my reasoning power to absorb any value. This paper aims to propose a systemic approach to Indonesian character education from a citizen and practitioner perspective.

II. The context of Indonesian character education

A. The Geographical and Socio-Cultural ContextsI began to fully realize the vast area of Indonesia when I tried to explain to my Australian new acquaintance back in 1981 about the size of this country. That was my response to her question, “What part of Bali is your country, Indonesia?” I gave her all the information necessary to make her realize her ignorance of her neighbouring country. Below is the updated information on Indonesia, presented in points.

Indonesia seems to be the largest archipelago in the world with islands spreading across the seas for 5,110 kilometres (3,194 miles) east to west along the equator and 1,888 kilometres (1,180 miles) north to south.

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• An Archipelago: consisting of more than 17,000 islands• Big islands: Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, West Papua, Java (the smallest among the

five)• Volcanoes: around 200, of which 60 are still active, standing to form a ring connecting the

islands• Ranges of mountains: in big islands• Swampy areas: esp. Sumatera & Kalimantan• Natl. disasters: earthquakes, landslides, floods, forest fires, eruptions, severe droughts,

tsunamis • Population: about 237.6 million; 52%= female; around 60% living in Java)• Languages: more than 700 local languages; Bahasa Indonesia as the National Language • Ethnicity: >350 ethnics (Javanese=the biggest)• Traditional ceremonies: weddings, funerals, circumcisions, thanks-givings, etc. • Handicrafts made of: wood, bamboo, textile, clay, silver, gold, etc. • Arts: performing arts, fine arts, literature, martial arts, music• Architecture: varies with ethnics/areas• Mines: petroleum, tin, natural gas, nickel, timber, bauxite, copper, coal, gold, silver• Flora: rain forest, trees, types of fruit, plants, flowers, crops

B. The Country Development Context

From History I know that this country used to consist of kingdoms and was gradually colonialized since the 17th Century. Scattered struggles for independence began in 18th Century and built up slowly and became unified in 1928 leading to its success in obtaining independence in 1945. It is written in the Preamble of the 1945 Constitution that the independence has the following major goals: (1) to protect the whole Indonesian people and the whole area of Indonesia; (2) to improve public welfare; (3) to enhance the nation’s intelligent life: and (4) to participate in establishing world order based on independence, eternal peace and social justice.

After thinking about the meaning of the nation’s intelligent life in the context of character education, I have come to a sort of definition. In my understanding, an intelligent life is a life led by Indonesian citizens who have strong and good character observable in: (1) their noble, improvement-oriented deeds that are (a) guided by their religious teachings and the five state principles (Pancasila), and (b) as the application of relevant science and technology, and (2) their ability to refrain from doing things that immediately, in the short run, and the long run, do harm to themselves, to others and to the nation, as well as to humanity. With this definition, the ideal Indonesian citizens have strong and noble character. This is to be observed in their ability to deal effectively with difficult, unpleasant, or dangerous situations at the individual, community, national, and humanitarian levels of life; thus, the ability to solve problems with a progressive perspective without arousing new problems both in the short run and in the long run. In other words, the ideal Indonesian citizens have “educated head, educated heart, and educated body in Indonesian settings”; thus, the Indonesian character.

Attached in the Indonesian character are various values of different types. In this case, Lickona & Davidson (2004), is quoted by Lapsley and Narvaes (2006) as saying

A distinction is drawn between two aspects of character: performance character and moral character. Performance character is oriented towards mastery of tasks and includes such qualities as diligence, perseverance, a positive attitude, a commitment to hard work. Performance character is what is required in order to develop talents, skills and competencies. Moral character, in turn, is a relational orientation that is concerned with qualities of integrity, caring, justice, respect and cooperation. It is an ethical compass that guides the pursuit and expression of performance character. If performance character makes it possible to live a productive life, moral character is required to live an ethical life. Effective education should aim to develop both aspects of character.

Upon reflection, I have conceived that strong and noble character comprises five elements, two constituting the moral character and the other three the performance character. This is summarized in Figure 1 below.

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Figure 1: Elements of Strong and Noble Character

To my observation, the journey to the desired life condition is still very long as educational efforts made compete with all the challenges posed the dynamic development of managing the country itself. For about five years following the independence, the nation struggled hard through a revolution war to protect the independence. This was followed by an unstable political life for about five years, which failed to manage the country the the centralized system of government with the parliamentary system of decision making. The failure was the impetus to the establishment of highly centralized system of decision making in the Old Order Government, emphasizing the unity of Indonesia. With the Old Order Government being toppled in ten years later, the highly centralized system of government was continued by the New Order Government, which managed to develop the country through Five-Year Development Plans, emphasizing the economic growth for more than 30 years. The development disparities led to the reform movement, ending the New Order Government in 1998. This was the beginning of the new journey entering the highly decentralized system of government with the three main spirits: democratization, decentralization, and regional autonomy. which in fact requires the change of the people’s mindsets, which is something not easy to achieve. The last radical change certainly requires the change of the people’s mindsets, which is something very difficult to achieve after being submissive to the system for more than three decades. Figure 2 illustrates the outline of the system changes.

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Figure 2: The Journey of Indonesian Development towards the Desired Life Condition

Along the journey of developing the nation, some character education efforts can be seen through policy/curriculum changes. Prior to the the New Order Government, character education is explicitly mentioned as an independent subject. Then it was integrated to the civic education and religious education. From the 1980s to 1990s, character education was supported by a program aimed instilling the values of Pancasila, the Five State Principles, for all the components of the nation—civil servants, students, and community members. In the present curriculum, the desired character values are reflected in the statement of the exit standards of schooling, which if achieved, will support the achievement of the function and goal of national education leading to the establishment of the nation’s intelligent life. To achieve the standards is not an easy job to accomplish because of the various challenges posed by various developments in local, national, and global contexts in all aspects of life. This is illustrated in Figure 3.

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Figure 3: Character Education Efforts Competing with Challenges

Such challenges are to be answered in a situation featured by a big gap between the desired “mindsets” and the existing “mindsets”, embedded with the use of ICT with its flood of information, a lot of which basically threatens the character education efforts. People seem to be busy with their worldly affairs at the expense of ethical values. So the challenges are both internal and external in terms of character education. It stands to reason that the present condition is still far away, even further and further from the desired national life.

C. The Condition Leading to the Re-emergence of Character Education in Indonesia

The worldly orientation of life has dragged most people into a situation featured by alarming phenomena of social ills such as confusing life practices, ignorance, hopelessness, lack of work ethos, lack perseverance, social/individual conflicts, moral degradation, weakening identity, and drug abuses. Meanwhile, similar phenomena are observable in in the life of those involved in running the country, among others: power abuses, dishonesty, injustice, under-age sexual abuses/harassment, distrust, permissiveness of harming media/ICT, and weakening nationalism/patriotism. More alarming phenomena from the point of view of character education are drug trafficking/abuses and abuses of media use, both of which have reached underage children. For example, a survey of 3967 4th – 6th

graders (Jan 2008-March 11) found that 68% of the children had accessed pornography. The surveyed children accessed pornography through: VCD & DVD (8%), Websites (28%), mobile phone (6%), magazines (5%), newspapers (5%), novels (1%), comics (20%), games (14%), film (13%). Related to this have been sexual abuses by and happening to underage children (Erlik Isfandiari, Salimah DIY). Meanwhile, small survey of 70 net-kiosks in 3 districts in the Special Territory of Yogyakarta found that 76,10% of them kept pornographic files readily accessible (Suwarsih Madya, 2010). Other unpleasant phenomena are related to the present generation’s tendency of leading an easy life, full of pleasure and instant things.

Have all these things happened in Indonesia only? No! No! No! Similar phenomena have been observed in other countries. This can be seen in the following quotation:

The intentional teaching of good character is particularly important in today’s society since our youth face many opportunities and dangers unknown to earlier generations. They are bombarded with many more negative influences through the media and other external sources prevalent in today’s culture. At the same time, there are many more day-to-day pressures impinging on the time that parents and children have together. Studies show that children spend only 38.5 minutes a week (33.4 hours a year) in meaningful conversation with their parents, while they spend 1,500 hours watching television. (American Family Research Council, 1990 and Harper’s, November 1999.)

The difficult task of raising moral children is compounded by other forces in the lives of children and parents (e.g. culture, media, peers, etc.) that promote unethical, immoral, and self-focused behavior.

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"Only rare and fortunate teenagers encounter the kinds of experiences that help them break out of this envelope of self-interest and learn to contribute to others" (Ryan, 1986, p. 232). In fact, the conduct of United States youth during the last 20-30 years has been marked by two trends: (a) a rise in destructive behavior, and (b) a rise in self-destructive behavior (Wynne & Hess, 1987, as cited by Annette Kusgen McDaniel, 1998).

III. Learning from Others about Character Education

A. The Importance of Conducive Environment for Character Education

Character education needs the support of conducive environments and model behaviours. Without such support all efforts will fail. "We ensure failure if we teach ethics without using a community context to illustrate, nurture, and support ethical development. Without grounding ethics within the particular community and cultural context of the learner, ethics remain abstract, outside the scope of experiences of the learner, and ultimately irrelevant" (Matthews and Riley (1995:17). Without an environment that is conducive to being a person of character, character education cannot be effective (Kohn, 1997). In order to be successful, prevention programs must focus on enhancing and creating positive environmental contexts (families, schools, and communities) that, in turn, reinforce positive behaviors (Benard, 1992). (Source: Annette Kusgen McDaniel, 1998). The latest developments of world civilization indicate that the advancements of technology have helped create easy, instant life; thus, problems of human character (William McGaughey, 2007), though we have to admit that the ICT has helped knowledge to double every 11 hours today. It should be noted that in the early 20 th Century it doubled every 30 years and in the 19702 every 7 years (Bontis, 2002, in Brown, 2005). So it depends on how people use the ICT whether ICT give positive/negative impacts. This is illustrated in Figure 4.

Figure 4: ICT and Its Possible Influences7

This ICT-embedded world or digital era has posed greater challenges to character educators. In the past Indonesia recognized three-fold education centres, i.e. family, school, and society. Nowadays, however, two educational centres have emerged, i.e. mass media and virtual worlds. This is illustrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Challenges Faced by Educators in this Digital Era

B. Learning from Other CountriesTo ensure efficiency, it is important to learn from the practices of character education in other countries. Annette Kusgen Mc Daniel (1998) has identified what does not work and what works in character education. What does not work in character education includes: prescriptions, lecturing and moralizing, authoritative teaching styles, externally derived codes of ethic, setting the ethics agenda without involving students in the process, and inappropriate reward and punishment. What works in character education includes: involving learners in setting the agenda, using peer involvement, utilizing parental and community support, respecting students, encouraging student participation in the life of the school, expecting students to behave responsibly and give them the opportunity to do so, promoting cooperative learning strategies, and promoting several parenting behaviors.

Meanwhile, Antes and Norton (1994) as cited by McDaniel (1998) provide the following suggestions for moral education:

1. Provide opportunities for students to be responsible for each other by providing cross-age grouping and cross-age tutoring.

2. Relate educational experiences to students' lives providing opportunities for students to share their points of view.

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3. Develop cooperative activities in the community with service projects to help students develop a sense of responsibility and connection to the community as a whole.

4. Encourage discussions with and among students concerning aspects of school life and how to interact with other people in the appropriate manner.

5. Guide children in playing a role in decision making in the classroom and school. 6. Provide for forms of student self-government in public schools as a means of helping students

contribute to others and develop critical thinking and interaction skills. 7. Use day-to-day activities and what is happening in the students' lives as opportunities to deal

with values and ethics. 8. Encourage students to think in complex ways about moral issues in life as they appear in the

curriculum. 9. Use reading and writing activities to encourage moral and ethical thought. 10. Structure the learning environment so that it models democratic values and provides a safe

environment for learning, sharing, and cooperating.11. Encourage self-discipline through cooperative interaction between persons in the learning

environment. 12. Use discussion, role-playing, and analytical and creative projects as a basis for critical thinking

about values, attitudes, character traits, and moral issues. 13. Use cooperative learning activities to help students develop social interaction skills. 14. Establish parent support groups to develop a moral consensus.

Those who are interested in conducting character education in Indonesia are also advised to read Darmiyati Zuchdi (2008) for information on the holistic, comprehensive approach to character education.

I agree to Ratna Megawangi (2010) who states that character education can be carried out through habituation of thinking, feelings/attitudes, and behaviours. Figure 6 illustrates the comprehensive habituation of character values.

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Figure 6: Habituation of Character Values

IV. A Systemic Approach to Character Education in Indonesia

In the process of becoming mature Indonesian citizens, Indonesian children grow up in a multicultural community, with various types of input starting from their local community with its own culture/ wisdom that constitutes their core identity, that may later expand as their experiences increase in types and areas beyond their local physical and cultural environments, entering the national arena, penetrating the national border, and even surpassing the physical boundary to reach the spiritually felt hereafter. This is relation to the pillars of developing the nation: the 1945 Constitutions, the Five State Principle, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika or Diversity in Unity, and the Unified Republic of Indonesia. In short, Indonesian citizens are to possess Indonesian character in which multiculturalism and pluralism are inherent, envisioned by the unifying national spirit, enriched by global insights, and imbued with insights into the hereafter. When this desired character is successfully developed in every citizen, the four goals of Indonesian independence mentioned before will certainly be easily achieved. Figure 7 illustrates elements and layers of Indonesian character.

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Figure 7: Elements and Layers of Indonesian Character

To achieve the true Indonesian character will then need great efforts to instill various values in the citizens. The values include local, national, environmental, and humanitarian values, all of which should be divinely inspired to ensure an easy journey to the true destiny, i.e. the eternal happy life in the hereafter, which is preceded by the happy life in this present world. This is illustrated in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Character Education for Achieving the Envisioned True Destiny

To ensure that Indonesian character education in implemented teachers/educators alike should be facilitated to conduct reflective teaching through cycles of planning-action-observation-reflection. A special attention is to be given to Indonesian content necessary to ensure that all Indonesian children

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have a good understanding of Indonesia and some pride of being Indonesian. Besides, teachers and other educational personnel should be equipped with a good knowledge of character education methodology and assessment/evaluation. This is to ensure that what their efforts are leading to the achievement of the national standards of exit competencies, desirably surpassing them, to speed up the achievement of the function and goal of national education, which is directed further to the achievement of the nation’s intelligent life. This is illustrated in Figure 9.

Figure 9: The Cycles of Planning-Action-Observation-Reflection of Character Education

Learning activities are to be designed to ensure that the students develop their character by being engaged in real, mediated, and/or virtual experiences in layers of contexts through processes of transmission, transformation and reformation. They are first engaged in activities related to their immediate physical, social, and cultural environments. This is by no means to strengthen the ethnic orientation because once they have learned adequately about their own environments, they have to expand their experiences through a sort of comparative studies, conducted directly or through virtually in the wider and wider environments. (See Figure 10). In this way, they will grow and develop into a multicultural and plural persons bearing a basic Indonesian character.

Figure 10: The Experiential, Contextual Strategy of Character Value Learning

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With such an experiential, contextual strategy, the immediate environment is the starting point of

learning in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes and all continue to those in the wider and distant

environment, with opportunities to know the good, reason the good, feel the good and act the good, supported by role models from the other adults.

Examples:1. Biology: starts with living things found in the immediate environment;2. Social sciences: starts with the social system prevailing in the immediate environment;3. Culture: starts with events, works, values in the immediate environment;4. Maths: starts with problems to be solved through figures in the immediate environment;

5. etc.

Affirmative policies should be made to ensure that the children develop into Indonesian multicultural persons through, for example, the following steps:

1. Students acquire knowledge about people, objects, events found in: a. their immediate environment through exploratory activities using a scientific approach b. wider environments through media + study tour c. distant environments through ICT facilities

2. Students expand their cultural knowledge and experiences through exchange and joint camping programs:a. Inter-schools within a subdistrict (Grades 1-3)

b. Inter-subdistricts within a district (Grade 4-6) c. Inter-district/city within a province (Grades 7-9) d. Inter-provinces (Grade 10-12)

The following 3 subjects seem to play essential roles in the development of the students’ understanding of Indonesia and sense of nationalism:

1. Geography of Indonesia, may stimulate the development of a sense of pride and gratitude for the abundant resources;

2. History, can provide information on the journey of becoming the present Indonesia, with its successes and failures; and

3. Bahasa Indonesia, with all its functions–ideational, heuristic, manipulative, and imaginative functions, through the application of a mixture of content/theme-based teaching, may optimize the development of students’ nationalism through more attention to the Indonesian content across subjects.

In addition, a developmental stage-based strategy may also be implemented. Considering the concepts of development/learning offered by Piaget and Vygotsky, the teacher may use the following principle.

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Younger learners are to learn through more concrete things using the do-feel-understand cycles, while older learners to more abstract things using the understand-feel-act cycles. This is illustrated ib Figure 11.

Figure 11: The Developmental Stage-based Strategy of Character Education

The above strategy may be applied through developing the proportional design of character education curriculum as illustrated in Figure 12.

Figure 12: The Proportional Design of Character Education Curriculum

Character educators in the multicultural settings of Indonesian should consider the post-method pedagogy with the following three interdependent dimensions: particularity, practicality, and possibility. ‘Particularity’ means that the sort of techniques teachers use depends on the teaching situation, i.e. where, when and to whom they are teaching. The situation is believed to determine the ‘how’ of teaching, and the socio-cultural and political issues affect the kind of teaching. With the notion of particularity, “any … pedagogy, to be relevant must be sensitive to a particular group of teachers teaching a particular group of learners pursuing a particular set of goals within a particular institutional context embedded in particular socio-cultural milieu” Kumaravadivelu (2003: 34).

The second parameter practicality, means that a method should be applicable in real situations so that theory is related to practice. In other words, a theory is of no use unless it can be applied in practice. With this parameter in mind, teachers will be motivated to make theories from their practices and then practise what they have theorized. This can be conducted through cycles of action research studies. By

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trying to derive a theory from their own practice, they can understand and identify the existing problems, and therefore, can opt the best way to teach. Such teachers then have an unexplainable sense of plausibility, i.e. a sense of what makes a good teaching (Prabhu,1990, as cited by Kumaravadivelu (2001/2003). The last parameter is possibility (Kumaravadivelu, 2001/2003), which means that the method should be appropriate socially, culturally, and politically. Naturally teachers and students attend the classroom with all their beliefs and thoughts as well as their personalities. Their personalities inside the classroom are then the same as their personalities outside the classroom in their everyday lives. Meanwhile, Giroux (1988, cited in Kumaravadivelu, 2001: 543) maintains that pedagogy of possibility refers to “the need to develop theories, forms of knowledge, and social practices that work with the experiences that people bring to the pedagogical setting.”

With the post-method pedagogy, character educators will indeed be able to adapt any strategy or technique to the situation to obtain maximum results.

One thing to remember in character education is how learning will be assessed. Consistent with the nature of character development, which is continuous through involvements in experiences, the results of character education should be assessed through an appropriate strategy. Continuous assessments and portfolio are probably more suitable than testing.

All of the points discussed above have an important implication for the importance of keeping the consistency between the learning approach, program management, learning assessment systems, and retraining of teachers and educational administrators, as well as redesigning teacher education. This is illustrated in Figure 13.

Figure 13: A Comprehensive Design of Character Education Development

Finally, with all the points having been discussed, a systemic approach can then be applied to ensure “CHARACTER EDUCATION BY AND FOR ALL”. This is illustrated in Figure 13. In this approach, character

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education is indeed the concern of all related societal and institutional elements: families, educational institutions, community members and public figures, mass media, the virtual world, and business/ commerce. Families as the first and main place for children to grow and develop should make all efforts to establish a harmonious life with parents and other adults being persons of character who are able to practice good parenting and provide model behaviours. Educational institutions should provide role models and be consistent in all the policies, programs and their management and assessment/ evaluation for purposes of developing total persons of Indonesian character as mandated in the Educational Law. Community members and public figures should ensure a secure and orderly social situation and condition featured by consistent law enforcement and culturally accepted and ethical/civilized behaviours as models. Mass media should present conceptually correct and contextually appropriate contents which can stimulate and enhance curiosity to promote livelong learning. In other words, they should be consistent in carrying out their educating role. The virtual world, which is inescapable today, should be appropriately screened by regulations of its utilization to enhance character education. Finally, business/commerce and any other economic activities should be selected and conducted with ethical considerations and give priority to national interests. Only with this systemic approach being consistently applied will strong and noble character develop in Indonesian children and other citizens.

Figure 14: The Systemic Approach to Character Education in Indonesia

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The proposed approach described above is consistent with the the blue print of national character building education (Pemerintah Republik Indonesia, 2010) issued by the Indonesian Government in 2010. V. Concluding Remarks

My value-learning experiences in all aspects of my personal, family, social, and professional lives have convinced me that values are absorbed and become internalized through a series of experiences, both exposed and engaged in, in different situations with events, things, or other people enhancing or harming the process. Indonesia, with its abundant natural and social-cultural resources and its historic struggles for independence as a human right, should have been more successful in educating persons of Indonesian character. Inappropriate life orientations have, however, resulted in malpractices of life which have endangered the individual citizen’s character and nation character building. The re-emergence of character education is indeed a proper momentum for searching for the appropriate approach to character education. To be successful, character education should be the collective concern of all elements of the whole nations.

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