CHARACTER BUILDING

The term character is connected and exchanged with the terms ethics, morals, and or values and is related to moral strength, positive connotation, not neutral, is a mental, moral or character traits that distinguish a person from others. Thus the character is unique values - both those which are inherent in themselves and manifested in behavior. Coherent characters emanate from the results of thinking, though the heart, the feeling and intention, and the sports of a person or group of people.

Character is also often associated with the term so-called temperament which emphasizes more on the psychosocial definition associated with education and the environmental context. While the character seen from a behaviorial point of view emphasizes more on the somatopsychic element a person has from birth. Thus it can be said that the process of character development in a person is influenced by many unique factors that exist in the person concerned which is also called the nature (nature) and environment (nurture) where the person concerned grows and develops. Congenital factors may be said to be beyond the reach of the community and individuals to influence them. Whereas environmental factors are factors that are within the reach of the community and individuals. So a person's character development or education efforts can be carried out by the community or individuals as part of the environment through environmental factor engineering.

Character Education Factors

Environmental factors in the context of character education have a very important role because changes in student behavior as a result of the character education process are very determined by these environmental factors. In other words the formation and engineering of the environment which includes the physical environment and school culture, school management, curriculum, educators, and teaching methods. The formation of characters through environmental factors can be done through a strategy:

• Exemplary

• Intervention

• Consumption that is done consistently

• Strengthening.

In other words the development and formation of character requires the development of transmitted examples, interventions through the process of learning, training, continual habituation in the long term that is carried out consistently and strengthening and must be accompanied by noble values

Pillars of Character Education

Character education is based on six ethical values that everyone can agree to - values that do not contain political, religious, or cultural bias. Some of the things below that we can explain to help students understand the Six Pillars of Character Education, namely as follows:

1. Trustworthiness

Be honest, don't cheat, plagiarize or steal, be reliable - do what you say you will do it, ask the courage to do the right thing, build a good reputation, be obedient - stand up with family, friends and the country.

2. Recpect

Be tolerant of differences, use manners, not a bad language, consider the feelings of others, do not threaten, beat or hurt others, peace with anger, insults and disputes.

3. Responsibility

Always do your best, use self control, discipline, think before acting - consider the consequences, be responsible for your choices.

4. Fairness

Play according to rules, take as needed and share, be open-minded; listen to others, don't take advantage of others, don't blame others carelessly.

5. Caring

Be loving and show you care, express gratitude, forgive others, help people in need.

6. Citizenship

Make schools and communities better, work together, involve themselves in community affairs, become good neighbors, obey laws and regulations, respect authority, protect the environment.

Purpose, Function and Media Character education

Character education is essentially aimed at forming a strong, competitive, noble, moral, tolerant, collaborative, patriotic, dynamic, knowledge-oriented and technological-oriented nation which is all inspired by faith and piety to the Almighty God.

. Character education functions to:

develop basic potential to be good-hearted, good-minded, and well-behaved
Strengthening and building the behavior of a multicultural nation
increasing competitive national civilization in world relations.
Character education is carried out through various media including families, educational units, civil society, political society, government, business, and mass media.

Character Forming Values

The actual education unit has been developing and implementing character-building values through the operational programs of each education unit. This is a precondition for character education in educational units. The values of preconditions (the existing values) in question include piety, clean, neat, comfortable, and polite. In order to further strengthen the implementation of character education, namely:

1. Honest

2. Tolerance

3. Discipline

4. Hard work

5. Creative

6. Mandiri

7. Democratic

8. Curiosity

9. Nationalism

10. Love the country

11. Appreciating Achievements

12. Friendly / Communicative

13. Love Peace

14. Love to read

15. Care for the Environment

16. Social Care

17. Responsibility

18. religious

The Importance of Character Education

Education applied in schools also requires to maximize skills and cognitive abilities. With such understanding, there are actually other things that are no less important than children that we have unknowingly ignored. That is giving character education to students. Character education is important meaning as a counterweight to cognitive skills. Some of the facts we often encounter together, a wealthy businessman is not generous, a politician does not even care for his starving neighbor, or a teacher is not concerned about seeing street children who do not get the opportunity to study in school. That is proof of the lack of a balance between cognitive education and character education.

There is a wise word saying "science without religion is blind, and religion without knowledge is paralyzed". The same also means that cognitive education without character education is blind. The result, because the blind cannot walk, walk even with the origin of being hit. Even if walking using a stick will still run slowly. Conversely, knowledge of characters without cognitive knowledge, it will be paralyzed so that it is easily driven, utilized and controlled by others. For this reason, it is important not to ignore the character education of students. Character education is education that emphasizes the formation of character values in students.

It is natural that we expect families to be the main actors in educating the moral basics of children. However, many children, especially children who live in poor areas, do not receive moral education from their parents.

Low socio-economic conditions are related to various problems, such as poverty, unemployment, low education levels, low social life, usually associated with high stress levels and further influencing the upbringing pattern. A study showed that children living in poor areas were 11 times more likely to accept negative behaviors (such as physical and mental violence, and neglected) than children from higher income families