A Review of Moral Education’s Journals

Moral education is an important things for the children’s development. In

the early childhood of aged three to six years, moral education has been taught not
only in a family but also in the schools. While children grew up, they will learn
how controlling and maintaining their physical, emotional, and moral skills. At
the beginning of education, they got a new thing by imitating what people, who
are close related with them, do or talk. For instance, when they were in the
kindergarten, they must be follow what their teachers do during the class. It
indicates that the children aged 3 to 6 years require a model to help them
developing their physical and mental abilities. In this case, the parents and
educators have to concern the early children’s education, including their moral
skills.

Moral education is a part of education that purposes teaching the students

or the children moral values and facing up the process of communication in the
society. This education is not formed automatically, but it need to practice as
much as possible with the teachers or friends who are the same aged with them.
According to Nucci and Narvaez (2008), there are three theoretical frameworks of
moral education, virtue ethnics, moral reasoning, moral emotion-based on
education. These theoretical frameworks are related to philosophy or
psychological term if we look at their conceptual structure. Moral education is
also an interdisciplinary field that includes and interacts with moral philosophy
and moral psychology (Berkowitz, 1997). Many people do research about how
teaching moral education through literature. There are two journals or papers that
I have read which provide the results of their research of moral education through
literature. Firstly, the journal written by Husni Rahim and Malia Dinia Husni
Rahim discuss about how teaching moral education to young children by using
stories. It also show teachers or educators of young children can provide an
appropriate ways of teaching moral education by using stories. Secondly, the
journal discuss about how learning moral education through English Literature
text. It provides an alternative way to learn moral education and people can be
applied in their daily life by reading a literary work. Those two journals have the
same problems that talk about learning moral skills through a literary work that
has happened in all levels of society. They want to help society to maintain the
moral skills through a literature text such as, novels, short stories, and poems.
However, literature texts have more lesson and help people to solve the problems
of life.

The first journal is written by professor and lecturer that is from one of the
State Islamic University in Jakarta. Their journal has a good quality because it is
published in International Journal of Social Science and Humanity on November
2012. It discusses about moral education for young children by using stories that
also relates in Islamic values. They did their research in Islamic school and
college. This journal has six sections, (1) introduction, moral education for young
children in Indonesia, stories, storytelling, and oral culture, moral education and
Islamic values, storytelling in Islamic school, and conclusion. It begins with a
good introduction that discuss about general background of the journal. The
authors introduce the problems or the issues of the children in their development.
It stated that the children in a productive aged can develop rapidly. The brain also
starts to receive a lot of information that they hear or see. Therefore, the parent or
the educators must pay much attention to development of the children. Based on
this journal, there are six aspects of development that focus on education of the
children; moral and religious values, social and emotional development and
independence, language ability, cognitive ability, physical ability, and artistic
ability. In the section 2, the authors explain moral education occurs in Indonesia.
The curriculum in Indonesia prepare for the development of the children that is
based on moral religion and Pancasila. The lessons for the children are religious
term and Pancasila. The authors realize that the children accidentally learn about a
holy book and Pancasila because they just follow their parents ask to do. The
children still do not know what they are doing and why. That is the issues that
want to be shown by the authors in this journal. The authors’ argument also stated
clearly in this section with their purposes. The authors hope that stories can be
used to learn more about morality for the children and give the reason why they
study it. The section 3 discusses about oral culture, stories, and storytelling that
relate to Indonesia. Each culture has their own stories, or can be called as
folktales. The authors claimed that Indonesian young children learn morality
through the book such as the story book, a holy book, or etc. Nowadays young
children must read a story in the classroom to learn something. Storytelling is also
familiar. It takes place as bedtime stories or reading aloud. Those two types of
learning is used in kindergarten for learning language and morality.

In the section 4, it begins with the correct information that is taken from
the ministry of education and starts to combine moral education and Islamic
values. The authors believe that religion provides positive moral development for
young children. To prove their beliefs, they provided many citations from
Rossano (2008) and told that religious studies are the best examples of moral
education. For instance, when the parents tell the stories, they must use the story
of Prophet Muhammad. Prophet Muhammad is a popular story for young
children. It purposes to give a good example for them and hope that they can
manipulate the traits of prophet. Nevertheless, it is not only about the prophets,
but also about the philosophers of Islam such as Al-Ghazali. Al-Gahazali has
written a book about moral education. He claimed that morality is very important
in Islamic teaching. A holy book, Al-Qur’an, also has moral values. It shows that
the stories of a holy book, the stories of the prophets, Muslim children stories like
Mizan, and any other kind of Muslim book are the most common stories to learn
morality for young children. The section 5 talks about storytelling in Islamic
school. In this section, the authors did a research in twenty schools to visit and
survey about the book that is used for learning moral education. The authors
found out that some schools use storytelling to teach the children which a good or
bad thing. The teacher said that it can inspire the children and learn morality. The
authors also found that the teachers have an important role for helping young
children development in moral skills. After the teachers do storytelling, they
always connect the story in the daily life and take the message of the story. It help
the children to distinguish where the good or bad thing is. In that research, the
authors noted twelve stories that was chosen by the teachers in a month; (1) The
Story of Prophet Muhammad, (2) I Love You too (the story of a mother loved her
children), (3) Stories from Al-Qur’an, (4) The Prophet’s Best Friends for Young
Children, (5) Thank God for Creating the Sun, (6) I am an Honest Kid, (7) I Love
School, (8) Swallowed by the Whale (the stories of Prophet Yunus), (9) Eating
Snacks from The Street (stomachache is caused dirty food), (10) The Sea is Salty
(learning about science), (11) Crying Rocks (the story of the Prodigal Son), and
(12) My Little Brother and I. Through those stories, the teachers focus on the
message or the moral values of the story. In the last section, the authors conclude
that religion is an important role of Indonesian culture. They argue that the
religion values are the most commonly used in kindergarten that based on Muslim
school. The authors noted three findings in their study. Firstly, moral education is
an important subject in kindergarten in Indonesia by using stories. Secondly, the
teachers or educators have an important part in the development of moral skills of
young children. They must connect the story with the activity in a daily life.
Thirdly, the teachers who have the ways of seeing morality can affect the way
they convey moral values in the stories

The second journal also discuss about moral education through literature
that has been written by Helen Welch Painter. This journal has eight sections; (1)
Introduction, (2) Delimitations, (3) Development of the list of traits, (4)
Determination of texts to be examined, (5) The first analysis, (6) Tabulation of
data, (7) Summary of findings, and (8) Conclusion. This journal begins with a
good introduction that discuss about the general background or the issues of the
topic, moral education. It states the background of moral education, the claimed of
the author and the purpose of the study. Moral education subject is presented in
the curriculum of the school. The material of the subject can be found in a text,
especially books that relate to the objective of reading. The author believes that
reading for pleasure should be prominent as an objective or also for enjoyment.
The moral ideas must be found within the reading and the children can remember
the story and modify their behavior accordingly. The section 2 is delimitations
that discuss about the limitation of research. The author chooses the students in
the high school grades IX, X, XI, and XII. She uses the theory of McKwon that is
acceptable for this study to the effect of moral education as making desirable and
wholesome adjustment to his social environment. In the section 3, the author
discuss about the list of traits. She argues that the list of traits becomes the basic
of the study, because the concept of morality is difficult to determine and has
various meaning. After the selection, the major classification, or trait families can
be mentioned as follows; honesty, chastity, justice, dependability, generosity,
consideration of others, aestheticism, temperance, thrift, initiative, tact,
sociability, courage, and miscellaneous. The section 4 is the determination of texts
to be examined for research. In this journal, the author analyzed the books that
were used in four or more high schools in Indiana. There were twenty books with
the total page of 10,2616,6 pages of actual reading content. In the next section, the
authors’ first analysis was the traits found in a certain situation of the books.
Often more than one trait can be found in a certain situation of the books. For
checking on the accuracy of the judgments of the first analysis, the books will be
read twice and must be a change necessary. In the next section, the author
provides the data that is served as table of the names of the texts used in this
journal. It is also provided the percentage of the total reading content devoted to
moral traits. The explanation of the data will be discussed in section 7, summary
of findings. There are five points of findings that is noted by the author. First, the
total of pages of actual reading content is analyzed twice. Second, the lists of
individual traits that is named in the decreasing order of their importance are love
of a person, bravery, love of the beautiful, fearlessness, adventuresomeness,
appreciation of others, appreciation of nature, ingenuity, kindness, inventiveness,
and straightforwardness. Third, the most stressed of trait families that also
arranged in the decreasing order of their importance are sociability, courage,
initiative, miscellaneous, and consideration of others. Tact and thrift give a little
emphasis in the texts. Fourth, moral education trait can be found in every type of
literature. Fifth, all of the texts can be a reading content for moral character traits.
The last section, conclusion, discuss about the results of the study and the advice
for the future research. The author concludes that her studies are based on a
subjective analysis, because the moral traits that has been listed form many
authors are not in standard level. For the future research, the authors gives an
advice to select a material for the research is not only in literary work, bu also
suggested activities that relate to moral traits.

Both two journals that has been explained has a good quality and response.
The content is very useful for the human life and the next studies in morality
subject. The theory that is used is also different. The first journal relates to a
Islamic moral values by using Indonesian stories while the second one relates to
moral traits that can be found in the selection of books. Even though the theory
and the way are different, the journals more benefit to learn human traits can be
related in a daily life.. Those journals has a clear argument but are structured in
different ways. The first journal uses the main findings as the section while the
second one uses the structured of paper to research and analyze the findings. The
citation can be paraphrased in a good sentence and is correctly referenced in
references list. The journals have a good quality in the sentence, grammar, and
vocabulary that has written. There are few errors and good use of appropriate
words. The data that is found is also a correct information. The second journal is
better that the first one because it provides the table of data and is explained in
detail analysis. Nevertheless, in the first journal, the data is only explained by the
words that less proves the research or the study. We can conclude that these two
journals are in the same field but it is served in a different style. Even though their
theories are different, but their discussion is very useful for the future studies or
research.
References:
Nucci, L. P., & Narvaez, D. (2008). Introduction and Overview. In L. P. Nucci &
D. Narvaez (Eds.), Handbook of Moral and Character Education (pp. 1-7). New
York, NY: Routledge.
Berkowitz, M. W. (1997, March). Integrating Structure and Content in Moral
Education. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association,
Chicago, IL.
Husni Rahim and Maila Dinia Husni Rahiem, ‘The Use of Stories as Moral
Education for Young Children’, International Journal of Social Science and
Humanity, 2.6 (2013), 454–58 <https://doi.org/10.7763/IJSSH.2012.V2.145>.