In a research conducted by Adang Darmawan Achmad, the chief of daily adviser board (BPH) for Poltekes of Bhakti Pertiwi Husada, it was found that method of character education through Tarbiyah and Tafsiyah has more advantages than other character educations. Tarbiyah and Tafsiyah are believed to create six values of good characters for the children especially if both characters are combined in educational system of boarding school.
The research finding titled ‘Character Education in MTs-MA Boarding School in Assuannah Foundation Cirebon’ was delivered by Adang in Doctoral Promotion of Islamic Education Psychology on Saturday (20/1) held in Kasman Singodimedjo building of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY). The defense was led by theSri Atmaja P. Rosyidi, S.T., MSc.Eng., Ph.D, secretary by Dr.Aris Fauzan, M.A and examined by Prof. Dr. Siswanto Masruri, M.A, Dr. Muhammad Aris, M.A, Prof. Dr. Alef Theria Wasim, M.A, Dr. Khoiruddin Bashori, M.Si, Dr. M.Syamsuddin, and Drs. Abdul Madjid, M.Ag.
In his defense, Adang explained that there was Tafsiyah method as purification method referring to purification of Islamic teaching from several understanding or value which is not reflected to Islam. Besides, Tarbiyah method is an educational process toward people with Islamic teaching which has faced Tasfiyah process.
“Boarding school is an educational foundation where all student do not only study, but also stay and live a life with the foundation itself. However, during the educational process in boarding school, students have difficulties to communicate with outside environment and clumsy because they are lack of affection for a while from parents. Although we already have physical and non-physical components such as dormitory, praying room, study room and all good activities, some parents still have negative perspective toward boarding school,” told Adang.
Adang also added that life in boarding house intends to create peace, happiness, and feeling of secure for residents like it is called in concept of psychology as happiness or subjective prosperity. Happiness deals with pleasure principle that is free from stress and anxiety. Not only factor of happiness, but also there are some factors needed to create for every individual to have good attitude and behavior. Therefore, character education is required to implement.
“Character education is defined as education of value, character, moral and behavior to develop students’ ability in daily life. Thus, character education becomes an importance and focus of Indonesian government. Although students have come to school to learn, some other stakeholders such as family, boarding house keeper and good learning environment are still required in teaching-learning process,” he declared
Those things became the reason for Adang to conduct the research and not only to analyze and find the right method of character education, but also to research about application of the method. “Based on the methods applied in character education, only Tarbiyah and Tafsiyah method can create 6 good character values to students,” he explained.
The concrete application of those two methods is adhesiveness, happiness and self-adjusting. The form of those three applications yielded individual character. Students’ adhesiveness toward teachers and boarding house keepers has important role since it will increase health of mental and brain. For self-adjusting, students can be more confident because of being supported by environment. To build positive attitude and behavior, happiness must be applied from environment support.
“If those three applications can be well implemented, students might have attitude of religious, honesty, discipline, hard work, independent and appreciation. Those are 6 positive character values which can be achieved by students by applying two methods of character educations. It is different from other character education which can only yield 3 character values,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, the promoter, Dr. Muhammad Aris, M.A explained that further research is still necessary. “We still need to research regarding this concern to accomplish some points so that it will be role model to found a school or other things related to education,“ he added.
