ISSN 2798-0650

Volume 1 Issue 2 2021

DOI: 10.36663/joes.v1i2.148

Teachers’ Role in Developing Indonesian Students’

Character Education at School

Gusti Ayu Made Trisna Yanti, Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha, Indonesia

ayutrisnayanti45@gmail.com

Abstract
Character education as one of important lesson should be learned by students. It is important in
order to build a good behavior of students. Moreover, it also important because the quality of a
nation can be seen from the quality of the citizen. The more educated a person is, the more
advanced the intelligence of nation. However, there were lot of students who still do unwanted
thing at school which categorized as bad attitude. Unwanted activities may happen because
students were lack of character education. Therefore, this study aimed to describe theoretical
concept of teacher’s role in order to develop character education at school. Teacher’s role in
developing character education is very important due to most of students’ time they spend at
school. There were two main roles and several addition roles which can be taken by the teacher
in order to teach character education and build a good character of students.
Keywords: Character, character education, teacher’s role

Introduction
Education is an important thing for life. A lot of things can be changed by education.
Besides, a nation’s development also depends on the foundation that they build, which is education
(Agung, 2011). It means, the more educated a person is, the more advanced the intelligence of
nation. Education not only can get at school, but everywhere. In Indonesia, a person has to get
formal school at least twelve years. Then, a lot of students also continue their study to the
university level. Those statements indicated that, more of students’ time they spend at school.
From those statements can be concluded that, school takes a big role in developing Indonesian
education.
Formal school in Indonesia can be divided into three namely, elementary school, junior
high school and senior high school. Each stage contained different age of students and different
needs. Beside differences, each stage also has similarity such as, need to learn about character
education. Character education is one of efforts which has purpose to increase person’s quality

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(Singh, 2019; Siregar & Rachmadtullah, 2018). Character education focus on three major points
to be learned such as, to give value also moral quality like, honesty; then the second point to clarify
value which focus on how to select a value; and the last point is to build moral development which
focus on developing a value (Agung, 2011). Furthermore, many aspects will be improved by
learning character education (Putri et al., 2019). Those statements indicated how important
character education to be learned by students.
The importance of character education appeared due to several unwanted thing did by
students at school. Based on the result of primary observation conducted by Putri et al. (2019), it
showed that students did several disgraceful behaviors such as, cheating and bullying. Bullying is
one of unwanted thing which usually happened among students at school. Bullying is an activity
which can hurt someone who has less power, physically and psychologically (Harlianda &
Mudjiran, 2020). This problem is very troubling and often occurs at school. Besides bullying, there
were another examples of disgraceful thing did by students namely, cheating, fighting and drugs
(Hidayati et al., 2014). Thus, in order to avoid those unwanted activities at school, the action must
be taken at least by teaching character education to the students.
Character education is not fully a formal subject that provided by school to be learned
(Watz, 2011). Moreover, students spend their time more at school, start from morning to the
afternoon. It means that school is one of big factors which can develop character education of
students. This statement supported by Barker (2013) in Putri et al. (2019) who stated that one of
ways to teach character education is school and produce better community and citizens later on.
Besides, Putri et al. (2019) also mentioned that a good production result of people like, have a
good character and skill are the purpose of Indonesian National Education System. Thus, school
is one of elements to build and develop a better character of students.
There were several previous studies which discussed about character education. Start from
the first research about character education development through culture 5S in SMPN 2 Ngawi
(Rahayu, 2018). The study was designed using qualitative approach and the data collected using
interview. This study was aimed to describe the implementation of character education in SMPN
2 Ngawi through 5S culture which were senyum, sapa, salam, sopan dan santun. Furthermore
Rahayu (2018) stated that the study found a positive result which was the culture of 5S can be
proven as an effective way to build a good character of the students. It indicated that small thing
like 5S culture can change students’ character which can give impact the bigger thing.
The second study which talked about character education was conducted by Heriansyah
(2018), especially discussed about the importance of character education as well as the challenges
of teaching character education. According to Heriansyah (2018) teachers have a big role in order
to achieve the purpose of the learning process. Moreover, students’ succeed in academic field
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cannot represent fully their character and intelligence (Heriansyah, 2018). It means that a good
result in students’ academic cannot ensure that they have a good character. In addition, this
research also found that in implementing character education there were several challenges might
be faced such as, the commitment, support and appreciation.
The third research about character education came from Pratiwi (2018) who talked about
several challenges in implementing character education in English learning process. In
implementing character education eighteen values of character need to be inserted to the learning
process (Pratiwi, 2018). Then, the result of this study found out that there were three majors
challenge in implementing character education in English learning process such as, hard to match
the values with the learning material, students have different character and different need and
suitable strategies of the learning process sometimes hard to find. Thus, by knowing the challenges
in implementing character education, the right solution can be selected.
Besides those three previous studies, there were also conducted and discussed about
character education such as, a study which discussed about the strategies in teaching character
education (Narvaez & Lapsley, 2006). The result of the study showed that the teachers need to
give students a freedom to choose what they want to learn about. Then, there were also studies
discussed about how character education can affect students’ behavior (Doak, 2009; Dodds, 2016;
Ferrara, 2019). Those three studies indicated that character education can affect students’ behavior
and emotion which is very important to be learned and guide students to have a good character.
Based on those previous study, it showed that character education is important to be learned
by students. Since the need of learning character education is very important issue and the
challenges of teaching character education still exist, harder try needs to do by the teachers in order
to build a good character of the students. A good character is not a gift and need to be developed
(Pala, 2013). Considering the purpose of the learning process is not only to gain knowledge and
academic skills but also to know how to show a good attitude and behavior. Further, considering
school is one of aspects where students spend their time more, it means that teacher need to take
their roles in order to develop students’ character. Hence, from the statements and explanation
above, this research has aim to describe teacher’s role in order to develop students’ character
education at school.

Method
This research was designed by using literature review. Literature review is one of methods
which can be done by collecting data and sources from journal, articles, books and other media
which can support the idea of the researcher in order to conduct a research. This research described
qualitatively by collecting various data from previous research which conducted by other

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researchers and have similar study with this study. The theories which used in this research have
been sorted by the researcher in order to get a valid data and information to be shared. The collected
data were used by the researcher to support and develop the idea of the researcher which is the
importance of teacher’s role in order to develop character education of students at school. As the
theory from Ary et al. (2009) this research was done by reading similar sources, collecting the data
and information which can support the idea of the researcher, classify the data and the last step is
data analysis in order to get the result of the idea of the researcher.

Findings & Discussions

Based on the sources used by the researcher in this research, the researcher found that
character can be defined as how a person build a good relationship between himself with god,
society also the environment and those action can show how good a person is (Kamaruddin, 2012).
It means character of a person can be seen from how a person act in his daily life. Then, there were
also six pillars of character by Character Counts! Coalition as cited in Kamaruddin (2012) which
also stated by Bones (2020) such as;
1) Trustworthiness which can show person’s integrity, loyalty and honesty;
2) Fairness which means how person act as fair as possible by not making the other feel
aggrieved;
3) Caring is a character which show how a person pay attention to environment, society or
other people’s condition;
4) Respect can be defined as how a person appreciate other;
5) Citizenship means how a person comply with the rules and regulation in the community;
6) Responsibility is a character which makes a person responsible and discipline with the
obligation he gets.
Hence, those six pillars of character can show someone’s character by seeing their activity
in their daily life.
Furthermore, character education can be defined as efforts which can be done in order to
increase person’s quality (Siregar & Rachmadtullah, 2018; Tsai, 2012). It is important to develop
character education in order to develop a good habit and be a good personality. According to
Kamaruddin (2012) besides to let students know which are categorized as good thing or bad thing,
it also has purpose to build a good habit and make a person able to understand any kind of
condition. Furthermore, a teacher has a big role in order to influenced students’ habit in the future

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(Cao, 2019). It means, character education is beneficial to be learned by students. Besides to avoid
unwanted thing happen at school, it also can help students to develop a good character and habit
which they can apply in their daily life. Hence, those are definition and the importance of character
education.
Teachers’ Role in Developing Indonesian Students’ Character Education
Considering character education is not a major subject to be learned at school, the teacher
can teach the student about this by inserting character education into the lesson that the teacher
teaching about. Besides, students also can be guided by counselor’s teacher in order to not do an
activity which can make people feel restless and insecure. This statement also supported by
Harlianda & Mudjiran (2020) who stated that counseling teacher can help students to avoid
bullying activity by doing providing guidance and counseling service. Thus, teacher can use the
chance to teach students about character education and build a good character of students.
1. Guide Students in Teaching and Learning Process
According to Putri et al. (2019) there were several ways which can be implemented in order
to insert character education in the teaching and learning process such as; guide students to pray
by their own belief to show the religious value; tell students to speak as polite as possible; in order
to teach the value of nationalism, obey the rules, flag ceremony and the use of correct Indonesian
language always reminded by the teacher; the value of self-directedness also being one of concern
and the teacher insert this value by telling students to be confidence, being independent, keep spirit
and never give up. Besides, the teacher also can lead students to do the other activity which can
make them to learn about the other value and pillar of character. Hence, those were kind of activity
which indirectly can teach the students about how to do a good behavior.
2. Guide Students in Counselor Class
According to Harlianda & Mudjiran (2020) there is a type of counseling which can be
applied in counseling class namely group guidance. There are several roles in group guidance such
as; 1) Students divided into several groups and each group contain eight to fifteenth students; 2)
Teacher should guide students, give counseling services and give all students attention; 3) Teacher
not only give attention to students who have problem but also to those who does not have problem
to prevent unwanted thing happen and to explore students’ potential (Harlianda & Mudjiran, 2020).
Based on the result of the research Harlianda and Mudjiran (2020) mentioned that this group
guidance is effective to be applied at school specially to prevent students to do bullying activity at
school. Those were activities which can be done by teacher as a guide in counselor class.
3. Addition Roles

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Furthermore, in order to facilitate the role of the teacher as a guide in teaching and learning
process and also as a guide in counselor class, there were several addition roles which can be done
by teacher. The teacher need give students example, motivate and inspire the students, at the end
the teacher need to evaluate students’ behavior (Hasni & Said, 2020). Teacher can succeed the
goal of the learning process, including in teaching character education if they can guide the
students properly. Thus, the addition roles by Hasni and Said (2020) are very important to be done
to facilitate the main role of the teachers.
Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that character education is very
important to be teach especially for students. It is important in order to make students know how
to behave properly, not offend the other, speak politely and the most important to prevent students
to do unwanted thing such as bullying. There were two main roles which the teacher can do in
order to teach character education, the first one is as a guide in the learning process in the classroom
by inserting character education in the lesson and the second one as a guide in counselor class and
guide students to do good behavior. Furthermore, there were several addition roles in order to
expedite the main role to teach about character education to students. Hence, those were the
importance and teacher roles in order to teach character education at school.

Conclusions and Suggestions

In conclusion, character education is an important lesson to be taught by the teacher at
school. The importance of character education appeared, because students usually do unwanted
thing such as do bullying, cheating, and speaking rudely and so on. Besides to prevent students to
do those things, character education also important in order to increase person’s quality and a
nation quality. The more educated a person is, the more advanced the intelligence of nation. Then,
because most of students’ time they spend at school, the teacher needs to take a role in order to
develop character education of students. There were two main roles which the teacher can take
such as, as a guide in teaching and learning process and as a guide in counselor class. Further,
there were several addition roles in expediting those two main roles in teaching character
education. Hence, by carrying out those two roles and addition roles at school, the students can
have a good behavior and be a good citizen.

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