Peran Guru Agama Buddha Dalam Penguatan Pendidikan Karakter di SMPS Kasih Maitreya

Abstract

This study aims to describe the function of Buddhist religious teachers and the implementation of character education strengthening at Kasih Maitreya Middle School using a descriptive qualitative approach. Data collection techniques include interviews, observations, questionnaires, and documentation. Character education focuses on the development of cultural and moral values ​​in students to become a foundation for thinking, behaving, and acting as individuals, members of society, and citizens. In this study, the values ​​of character education strengthening that are more dominant are honesty, discipline, order, cleanliness, creativity, obedience, politeness, and caring, while values ​​that are not so dominant include respect and neatness. The results of the study show that first; the role of Buddhist religious teachers in strengthening character education at Kasih Maitreya Middle School has been going well, which can be seen from the percentage of questionnaire results, observations, and interviews with principals and teachers which reached 84%. Second, the implementation of character education strengthening among students of Kasih Maitreya Middle School has reached 53%, where the principal and teachers assess that character strengthening in schools is still not optimal, so that there needs to be improvement through the habituation of school cultures (smiling, greetings, politeness and friendliness), 3D (self-discipline, time discipline, and discipline of order), and 3S (love, smile, love, and affectionate behavior), so that these characters can become good habits both inside and outside of school.