Inculcating character values in the islamic private school curriculum :a case study in Medan

Abstract

This study examined the inculcation of character values in the school curriculum by exploring teachers’ perception of the definition of character education, teachers’ strategies in inculcating character values in classrooms, the challenges and suggestions. The teachers were purposively selected based on their experiences in teaching and training. The research employed qualitative design with semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and analysis of lesson plans in collecting data. The findings showed that teachers gave their definition of character education in relation to two words: behaviour and values. It was also found that they implemented five strategies in inculcating the values in the classrooms namely cooperative learning, building social community, moral reflection, modelling and storytelling. However, there was no formal standard assessment module in inculcating character values. Thus, the teachers used their own ways in evaluation. The recommendations for the future study included examining other participants of the school such as staff, students, principal as well as parents in order to achieve rich data from different perspectives.