SPEECH TEXT - CHARACTER EDUCATION

SOCIAL CARE FOR TEENAGER

Ladies and gentleman

Human beings like what we have seen that they were created by God each with different characters. But all of them were not created without any purposes, of course. The differences in the character of each person give us a lesson that not always something which is different cannot unite. The differences make us learn how to socialize, and how we respect each other. Even sometimes that’s precisely has brought the unity of things. The differences in human beings characters also show us that not all of the characters that have been created by God are good. Often we hear about someone who committed a crime such as miser, arrogant, ruthless, and dishonest or maybe for a simpler example such as cheating during exams, saying lie, doing arrogance and many other you can find. The characters mentioned above are called by the bad characters. Those characters should be fixed. So that is why today we often hear a variety of character education efforts, right?

The word Character education is consisting of character and education. Before I try to explain what Character Education is, first we have to know the meaning of that each word. Character is psychological traits, morals and manner in someone who can distinguish one person to others, while education is a process that individuals use to acquire knowledge or insight, also to develop attitudes and skill. So, we can conclude that character education is a conscious effort to instill values, morals, and manners for someone so it can appear in the real life where its purpose is to form an intrinsic value that would be the attitude and behavior of someone. If we study deeply about the meaning of character education we will see that character education is really important for our life.

 In schools, education is given to maximize the skills and cognitive abilities. Without realizing there are other things that are not less important has been overlooked, that is providing character education. Why the character education is important for our life? Since it is balance of affective skills and the cognitive ones. Some of the fact that we often encounter with, a wealthy businessman who is not just a philanthropist, a politician does not even care about the starving neighbor, or a teacher who’s not concerned to see the poor children who do not get the opportunity to learn in school. It is evidence of the lack of balance between the cognitive and character education.

Ladies and gentleman

There are many values that are included in character education, such as honesty, courage, religious, responsibility, disciplined, tolerance, social care, and many more you can find. But in this occasion I will focus on the social care. Without any theoretic definition, I’m sure we have already known what social care is. When a friend of us does not bring any pen we lend him, when our friend is sick we should see him, and when our friend won a competition we congratulate him. All of that are called social care. Social care should not be put in a big action only, but also in small things that we did already a manifestation of our care. Feel caring and helping others really do not harm us, on the contrary it will make us better depends how we help these people.

For example, when math class our friend doesn’t understand about the lesson so we teach her. Don’t you realize? We will be more understood about the lesson because we understand it back. Then our friend needs some money so we lend him. Trust me he will do the same when we need some money too.

When we care for our friend we don’t have to express it by helping them. A congratulation that we give for their success also shows our concern. Have you ever seen your best friends fight? Then you feel like you have to do something for them? That means you care of them. As we have the responsibility to unite them and bring people we know into love. Simply, we are sad when our friends are sad then be happy when our friends are happy too. That is the point.

Moreover, if we do all of that with sincerity then just believe the God would know and He always has his own way to reward every human kindness. It was written on Quran surah Al-baqarah verse 110

وَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَآتُوا الزَّكَاةَ ۚ وَمَا تُقَدِّمُوا لِأَنْفُسِكُمْ مِنْ خَيْرٍ تَجِدُوهُ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ

It means, “And establishes the prayer and give the zakāt. Any good that you send ahead for your souls, you shall find it with Allah. Indeed Allah sees best what you do” (QS. Albaqarah/2:110)

Unfortunately, some people today even away from that noble attitude including students. Sense of caring has lost their conscience and they are more likely to be self-centered and selfish. We can see the reality of the matter on the current students. They do not care about their friends anymore. Especially when their friends have difficulties in understanding the lesson they are not compelled to help him because they think if a friend can understand the lesson they will get a rival and harder to get the best value. We can say that they just want to be the best in a way that does not compete with sportsmanship. The wrong opinion is when we think that a rival will fall us. On the contrary, a rival will make us harder to learn and strive to exceed him.

This is what I mean by self-centered and selfish. As the bad attitude we should avoid it, of course. Just like what Allah said in Quran surah Ali-Imran verse 104

وَلْتَكُنْ مِنْكُمْ أُمَّةٌ يَدْعُونَ إِلَى الْخَيْرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ ۚ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ

It means,  “There has to be a nation among you summoning to the good, bidding what is right, and forbidding what is wrong. It is they who are the felicitous”

Ladies and gentleman

There are some ways to hone our concern for others. First, we can start by doing small things such as lend stationer. After that, concern by itself will improve and we will be more concerned with other people. Secondly, when we have felt more concerned to other people, we can start in a big action that is join in activities with the theme of caring. In Islamic organization for example, there are charity, giving something to orphan and poor men, teaching our holy Qur’an to children, and many more you can do.

Character cannot be inherited, the character cannot be bought and character cannot be exchanged. Character must be developed and built by conscious day by day through a process that is not instant. Character is not something innate that cannot be changed anymore like fingerprints.

I noticed that many people with bad characters tend to blame their circumstances. They often claim that they raised the wrong way, financial difficulties, treatment of others and other conditions that make them like this now. It is true that in life, we have to face a lot of things beyond our control, but your character is not. Your character is always the result of your choice.

Know that you have the potential to become a person of character, Seek it. Character, more than anything and will make you a person who have value added. 

Each person is responsible for his or her character. You have full control over your character and it means that you cannot blame others for your bad character because you are entirely responsible. Developing character is your personal responsibility.