people will be able to change his own life. Through planned education, the students will have spirit of
life to work hard. The ethos of hard work needs to be introduced early in the school through various
activities likes intra-and extracurricular at school.
Second, it
is independence. The
characteristics of
independent learners
is responsive, confidence and initiative. Responsive
means that students are responsive to the issues themselves and the environment. As an example
how they respond to the global warming crisis, they do green campus campaigns and car free day to
save our world. This means that hard work will foster confidence in children. Self-reliance is also
shown from the child confident.
The third, it is teamwork. Success is the fruit of togetherness. Successful completion of the task
group is a classic pattern that is still relevant to display this character. Outbound training is one
way to hold this character.
2.3. The Strategy to Implement the Soft Skills
and Character Education in the Learning Process.
Learning soft skills and character education is abstract. It is the affective feeling and
psychomotor assessment. It makes the teachers never teach them. It is very difficult to apply it. It
means the students never get the soft skills lesson in formal school. Soft skills can be learned through
social interactions. The students can learn soft skills through observation of the behavior and reflection
of their actions before. In other words, soft skills can be learned through the process of grinding. The
concept of learning was not bound by time and place so that they can learn soft skills anytime and
anywhere as long as they interact with others.
There are six categories of soft skills that can be sharpened: verbal and written communication
communication skills,
organizational skills,
leadership, the ability to think creatively and logically, resilience to face the pressure, teamwork
and interpersonal and work ethics. The application of soft skills in everyday life can be done in many
ways. One of which is in the work.
The research conducted by Daniel Golleman 1995 states that most CEOs in the world have a
high Emotional Intelligence. Their ability to manage work and others become a unique
incredible combination. Their emotional ability take a role to get more success than their
intellectual ability. It is said that George W. Bush Jr.. President of the United States have a great soft
skills. Although most of his friends think that he is fool, he can be the president. Widodo, 2009
One way to teach soft skills toward the students is through character-building lesson
Character building of Education has six pillars, they are respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and
citizenship. By implementing character building in education, the teacher will give assessment not only
in the cognitive aspects but also in the psychomotor effective aspects. The process of learning through
character building, the students are introduced many various of good characters in their life. They
must apply in their life, both at school and at home or inside and outside the school environment.
Thus, the students are expected to have excellent soft skills capabilities and led to the formation of a
stable individual mental life in facing the challenges ahead. By having soft skills, the student
will be motivated and they will be stronger individual, that is the individual who never give up
easily. To develop soft skills, the process learning developed at the school should be authentic. The
students are faced with real problems so they can overcome
challenges. This learning
requires awareness of principals and teachers to create
strategies. They also need to understand the mental attitude
and how
to develop
them in
learning. Currently, most
of the
principals concerned about learning, which is based on
process and context of the problem in this society knock the national exams that determine students
graduation Ahamad, 1991
3. Conclusion and Suggestion
It can be conclude that the soft skill and character education is importance toward the
process of teaching learning. By implementing it, it can be created good citizens, they are creative,
ambitious, analytic, and work hard. They can communicate with others, easily cooperative,
responsibility, and honest. All the elements are required when they want to get job. They will
create their own job and finally there are not unemployment in our country. They will do
something according their competence and finally there is not corruption. All the society will live
welfare.
To achieve all the nation goals, it is suggested that the teachers must be creative and motivate the
students in the process of teaching learning. The teachers should teach the affection aspect toward
the students. The teachers don’t only teach the cognitive aspect. After they graduate from the
school, they need skill that can be applied in the society, that is soft skills.
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