THE IMPORTANCE OF MORAL EDUCATION IN FAMILY

A PAPER

SUBMITTED AS FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT OF MID-TERM TEST THE PRINCIPLE OF EDUCATION

By ANNAS SURDYANTO 0701065018

ENGLISH POSTGRADUATE PROGRAM THE UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH PROF. DR. HAMKA JAKARTA 2012

family has an essential role in producing moral value to the children. That is a reason why moral education is important to be implemented in family

FAMILY AND MORAL EDUCATION

A. Background People were born from mother then grow up with parents and also brother and sisters. Everybody wants to have good children in order to be a good human being. A good human being is viewed through the attitudes or manners. The attitudes or manners can slightly changes from the wrong to the right or even from the correct to the incorrect. Therefore, family has an essential role in producing moral value to the children. The role of family has been widely recognized as an approach in education, especially for establishing and building moral value to the children. Without moral education in family, children will have no understanding about moral. They might be very bad or useless persons with bad society viewed. That is a reason why moral education is important to be taught in early childhood by the family. The importance of education in family has been considered long time ago by the Indonesian government. It is stated in the Law of National Education System that orang tua dari anak usia wajib belajar, berkewajiban memberikan pendidikan dasar kepada anaknya.1 Due to the importance of education in family, Indonesian government requires parents not only to send their children to the educational institute but also to have roles educate their children and.
1

Undang-Undang Sistem Pendidikan Nasional. Pasal 7 Ayat 2

Nowadays, many children are smart almost in all subjects but less in attitude. It is because of their lack of culture or attitude knowledge. They are only directed to learn science without combining culture and moral value within it. High score becomes the main purpose for students and a tool to measure the intellectuality of children. This is a very concerned moral view. That is why there are many adult students involved in fight, criminal cases, and even sexual harassment. Many parents are busy to work and very rarely implement moral education to their children. Most of them thought that sending children to schools or other educational institutes can educate their children sufficiently whereas it is not enough to give moral value in class or group of study. They do not realize that parents has very essential role to teach cultural and moral value to the children. It is stated in book titled Education and the Family: Passing Success across the Generations that parents education is a major influence on childrens educational success.2 According to Indonesian Survey Institute, the percentage number of juvenile delinquency is close to other social problems. It means that nowadays, juvenile is very poor morality. That is listed that the religious conflict is 18,82%, Thuggery 10,45%, crime 9,76%, and juvenile delinquency 6,27%3. The juvenile delinquency stands very close to crime.

Leon Feinstein, Kathryn Duckworth, Ricardo Sabates. 2008. Education and the Family: Passing Success across the Generations. New York: Routledge. Page Introduction 3 http://suarapublik.co.id/web/2012/09/16/survei-lsi-publik-makin-merasa-tak-aman/

Moreover, M. Masri Muadz, The Director of National Family Planning Coordinating Board (BKKBN) states that The recent survey result of a survey institute that is held in 33 provinces in 2008, 63% juvenile claims that they have a sex before marriage.4 This data affirms that moral education must be realized by every family in order to decrease these juvenile delinquency numbers. There are many reasons why it is important to give moral education to the children since they were born. Parents are element that directly or indirectly teach the children and expose the way of life to the children. Lickona clams that A parents socializing influence early-some suggest even before birth and endures, since at least one parent usually with a child throughout the childs growing years. Lickonas statement give more clear condition of how children grow with. It cannot be denied that children spend over the time with their parent that precisely exposes the way of life. The way of how parent lives will be considered as life learning by the children. Treating children means teaching students to treat something. This point is extremely known as a moral education. Parents should consider that everything that children see and receive is explored and safely saved in their brain then become their experience. Philosophers agree that experience has important role in human development. It gives knowledge and information more explicitly than the
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http://artikel.pelajar-islam.or.id/dunia.pii/arsip/63-persen-remaja-berhubungan-seks-di-luarnikah.html

theoretical lessons. It is affirmed by Deweys statement that Education is the process of living through continuous re-construction of experiences.5 Education is defined as a process comes from experiences which occur in life. Experiences always become the main educators for human being. Environment where children play and study possibly influences their morality. It is more than a common education. Moral education is about building character to the children. Moral education will fuse into the childrens soul until they become adults. That is a reason why moral education is important to be implemented in family.

B. Theoretical Discussion 1. Moral Education Moral is a common term in culture and society. A man who acts outside of manners will be called immoral by the society. Moral is related to the manners in society. Moral is an interpretation of the action in question, generated from the shared assumptions and understandings that constitute culture .6 This statement explains that Moral is an attitude understood in society through the culture in a certain environment. Education comes from the word educate which means teach, edify, train, etc. It can be assumed that educate means doing something to reach
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Bhagirathi Sahu. Opcit. Page 15 Killen and Smetana. 2008. Handbook of Moral Development. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publisher.

development. From that point, it can be defined that education is a process of something itself. It is in line with what Socrates has simply defined that education is a process7. Socrates explains that education involves procedures or steps that have goals. In addition, Herbert gives more specific definition of educations. Education is a process of the cultural and social reproduction of class relations and relationships.8 Herbert stated that education is a process comes from culture and society. From this point, it can be pick up the point that someone is educated by the environment including family which is the first place development of persons. Moral education is known as the education that related to the quality of character in society. Moral education is concerned with private virtues or qualities of character in public values9. Educate morality means educate people to have the better quality of character viewed in public values, such as behave, manners, esthetic, attitude and formative. From those definitions, it can be got the point that moral education is a process of manners understanding that arises from the culture and environmental society. Moral education is a term distinguishing people with other creatures. Without moral value, people have no difference with animals. A person with good morality shows that he is educated well in his family and a person with bad morality shows that he is not educated well by his family.
7 8

Bhagirathi Sahu . 2002. The New Educational Phiosophy. New Delhi: Saron & Sons. Page 14. Mbukeni Herbert Mnguni. 1998. Education as a Social Institution and Ideological Process. Munster: Waxmann Verlag GmbH. Page 18 9 Kevin Ryan and Thomas Lickona. 1992. Character development: in schools and beyond. Washington D.C: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication. Page 201

2. The role of Family Family is a group of persons which are related each other, such as father, mother, and their children. Family can also consist of grandmother and grandfather10. It depends on the family itself. All members in family have important role in educating children. In implementing moral education, all members in family have to expose good manners and attitudes from the smallest things. Every family must has different way of life. The way of life in family is adapted by every person in it. It can be defined as culture in family. It is a place where children firstly receives and develops themselves. The way children live, behave, and think is generally adapted from the family. Family that lives with much violence in it indirectly teaches children to live by using violence. Children will consider that everything is used in family is allowed for them to do so. This is the nature of children that must be understood by parents. Family has responsibility in growing up the children. The responsibility must be realized by each person in family, especially for father and mother who have essential role to the children. It is to remind that every child has potency to be a good human, bad human, even a useless human. In the book titled Moral Education: Beyond the Teaching of Right and Wrong, Wringe states that Family life may be
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Cambridge University Press. 2000. Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary Paperback with CDROM. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Page 334

considered by some to be a kind of practice contributing or even essential to human flourishing11. That is why moral education is important in family. 3. The importance of Moral Education in Family Moral education is important to implement to the children since they are in the early childhood. The morality is not developed as fast as understanding to theoretical material. It needs process as what has been discussed in the definition of education that it is a process. Moral education is a long journey. It is a process from the early childhood to adulthood (Lickona, 1992)12. The first education that human get must come from his family. A family that consists of father, mother, and brother or sister who live together with their children is a perfect element to educate children. They can control their children alternately and discuss on what best to be given to the children. Family should control their children by giving comments toward what they do about it is right or wrong, polite or impolite, and proper or improper. It is in order to build foundation in childrens mind and soul about right and wrong. Everybody agreed that morality is formed through the environment. The Environment outside the family will influence the way of people life either it is right or wrong. Due to this theory, it is essential to implement good moral foundation to the children so that children can think about right and
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Colin Wringe. 2006. Moral Education: Beyond the Teaching of Right and Wrong. Dordrecht: Springer. Page 131 12 Kevin Ryan and Thomas Lickona. Opcit. Page 202

wrong before they adapt many things from their environment outside their family. It is important because children start knowing the world and developing self by learning what they saw and were received in family. The beneficial of moral education will appear after the children growing up from their childhood. They will act as polite persons, as ethical persons. they will have good manners and become persons who are favored by nowadays society.