The Importance of Character Education
Education applied in schools and colleges requires maximizing skills and cognitive abilities. With such understanding, there are actually other things of a child or student that is equally important unknowingly neglected. That is providing character education to students.
Character education is important as counterweight of cognitive skill. Some facts that we often found, a wealthy businessman is not generous, a politician or state official does not care about the poor, or a teacher is not concerned about the street children who do not get a chance to learn in school. It is the evidence that there is no balance between cognitive education and character education.
Basic characteristics of character education are formulated by an originator of character education from German named FW Foerster:
1. Character education emphasizes on every action that guides on normative values. A child or student respects the existing norms and guide on the norms.
2. The existence of coherence or building confidence and courage, so a child will be a firm stance personal and not be easily swayed and afraid of risk every facing new situation.
3. The existence of autonomy: students understand and practice the outside rules to be values for them. By doing so, the students are able to make decisions independently without being influenced by pressure from outside parties.
4. Firmness and loyalty. Firmness is students’ durability in realizing what is considered good. Loyalty is basic respect for the commitment chosen.
Character education will make superior personal that not only has cognitive ability but also character that is able to realize success. Based on research at Harvard University in United States, a person's success is not solely determined by knowledge and technical abilities and the cognition (hard skill), but the ability to manage himself and others (soft skill).
The research reveals that success is only determined about 20 percent by hard skill and 80 percent by the soft skill. Furthermore, soft skill is formed through the implementation of character education in children.
