How to Apply the Character Education in the Era of the Twenty First Century Learning?

 The Implementation of Character Education in the Twenty First Century.

In applying the character education in the twenty first century learning, there are some items that should be noticed  in advance, namely the definition of character education, the impacts of  Technology,  the urgency of  the character education in the twenty first century learning, and the implementation of  the character education 

1. What is the Character Education

    The word of "character" is taken from the language of the Greek "charakter", which means a mark. Aristoteles defined good character as the life of right conduct in relation to others and to oneself (Lickona, 1992). According to Elkind and Sweet (1997), character is defined as the types of choices people make. Finally, Lickona stated that good character was defined as moral knowing, moral feeling, and moral behavior. In the teaching of Islam,the morality, behavior or virtues are the most important parts. The prophet of Muhammad peace be upon him stated : “Sesungguhnya seorang hamba itu benar-benar mencapai derajat orang yang berpuasa dan sholat malam dengan sebab akhlaknya yang baik” (HR Abu Dawud no 4798) In the other hadits, the prophet of Muhammad peace be upon him stated :

.أَكْمَلُ الْمُؤْمِنِیْنَ إِیْمَانًا أَحْسَنُھُمْ خُلُقًا، وَخِیَارُكُمْ خِیَارُكُمْ

    Understanding the character not only deals with the words/phrases like: courage, good judgment, integrity, civility, kindness, perseverance, responsibility, tolerance, self-discipline, respect for school personnel, responsibility for school safety, service to others and good citizenship and so on, but also the disposition and habits that determine the way that a person normally responds to desires, fears, challenges, opportunities, failures and successes. 

    Booker states that character is power. Therefore, the implementation of the character education in the era of the industry revolusion world that encountering the progress or development of digital world or is very urgent. 

The character education is a basic foundation functioning as an umbrella that used to describe or protect the users. Thomas Lickona describes character education as “the deliberate effort to cultivate virtue.” The key word is deliberate. We should not assume that children,left to their own accords, will grow and become young adults of good character. Clearly, children need adults to teach them through example and exhortation.

Rusnak (1998) stated that character education was the development of a language with students that instilled universal values that were worldwide. Vessels and Boyd (1996) defined character education as strategic instruction that promotes social and personal responsibility and the development of the good character traits and moral virtues that make this possible. Fertman and van Linden (1999) defined character education as formal instruction in honesty, trust, cooperation, respect, responsibility, hope, determination, and loyalty. According to Tomaselli and Golden (1996), character education was everything the school did to help students make better, more effective choices and decisions; the students must identify, understand, and learn how to act on their own values.

 2. The Impacts of the Information Technology and Digital World in Education.

We cannot avoid the progress and development of information technology, and digital world that always increase every year. They ofcourse have huge infuluences not only in the daily life but also  in education. The influences are as great challenges in education that should be encountered both negative or positive effects.

a. The Negative Influences

The negative influences of the digital world on the education or the students are the abuse of the digital and technology world, and the job opportunities. Many students use the digital and technology not to seek the useful informtion but they use technology just to play games and to see the other unuseful things, like the sexual film/video, and the other victims. All of them are very dangerous For the youths or for the students if they often see and imitate them. Therefore, the character education are very required to reduce or prevent the negative influences of the progress or development of digital or technology world.

Besides, the danger of the digital world are the decrease the role of the human beings. Since, in the era of digital or technology world, the work or the job of human beings will be replaced by the mechine. Consequently, the jobless or the job seekers always increase every year. Furthermore, the Following challenges faced by Industry 4.0 is an insufficient qualification of employees including a lack of digital culture and training. The impacts of Industry 4.0 can be seen in our day-to-day lives and are reflected in all fields (Madrak-Grochowska 2015; Wierzbicka 2018).

b. Positive Influences of the Digital World.

The progress of the technology and digital world not only have negative influences but also the positive influences. By technology, the process of teaching and learning activity can be conducted more easily and successfully, like in the conventional approach/method, the teachers prepare the subject of learning are more difficult; however, in the era of the technology, the teacher prepare more easily. they can seek the materials of learning in internet or google, and so on.

The technology-based teaching and learning method is known as Education 4.0, which is inspired by Industry 4.0. The Education 4.0 aims to improve the digital technological competences across all levels, and to enhance the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning. The approach functions on four ways: basic digital education for all pupils and students, digitally competent educators, learners and employees, and digital educational media. Education 4.0 provides for the needs of society in the innovative era.

Education 4.0 makes the students to adopt real-world skills that are representative of their jobs. This means that the curriculum will be designed in such a way that it creates more room for students to fulfill internships, monitoring projects, and work on project based activities. Students will get an opportunity to build logical mindsets.

Education 4.0 changes the traditional ways of taking exams. Students are not examined for their memorization capacity. They are tested in real-time according to their performance when they work on projects in the field. Thus, these factors not only give technical competencies to the students but also to the future employees of Industry 4.0.

3. Urgency of Character Education in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolusion

The character education in the fourth industrial revolusion is a must because the character education is as a filter that should be belonged by all of the school elements in order they are not influenced by the negative impacts of the technology. Schaeffer defined character education as “the long-term process of helping young people develop good character, i.e. knowing, caring about, and acting on core ethical values such as fairness, honesty, compassion, responsibility, and respect for self and others” Elkind and Sweet (1997) defined character education as teaching students how to make good choices.

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. Therefore, it is critical to create schools that simultaneously foster character development and promote learning. Viadero (2003) (as cited in Brown, 2007), feels that character education programs can be very useful in the sense of helping prevent school violence, drug problems, and promiscuous sexual activity.

4. The Application of  the Character Education in the Era of twenty first Century Learning

After understanding the definition of character education, the impacts of technology and the urgency of the character education in the era of industry revolusion, so the appropriate ways of applying the character education are as following:

a. explain the understanding of the character education and technology

The first stage that should be carried out, namely the teachers should cultivate the understanding about the character education in advance in order students are ready to accept and utulize the technology well and can avoid the abuse of technology and digital. 

The second stage, the teachers have to explain about the positive and negative effects of the technology and digital word in order the effect of technology will not distroy the students' future life.

b. Explain the Utilization of Technology

The technology can be positive and negative, it relys on the utilization. Therefore, the teachers should be able to direct their students  to utilize the technology wll, like to encrease their knowledge, etc. Besides, the character education can help the students use or avoid the abuse of technology.

Thus, the character education in the the era of the fourth industrial revolusion is very urgent to help the students avoid the negative influences and use the technology or digital well. John Wooden expresses that be more concerned with your character than with your reputation, because yor character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. What do you think of the character education in the era of the fourth industry revolusion?