Islamic Boarding School as a Role Model in Forming Students’ Intelligences, Characters, and Morals

Education has something that is mandatory for every individual. Education has many benefits for every individual. One of which is teaching and practicing to have knowledge and have good intelligences, characters, and morals. The success of a country’s education can be proven by the birth of students’ intelligences, characters, and morals.
Islamic boarding school as a comprehensive tool for cultural transformation in people’s lives. The Pesantren stands as an answer to a religious vocation to uphold the teachings and religious values through religious education and support for groups who are willing to practice religious orders and regulate their relationships.

From various concepts of education in Indonesia, Islamic boarding school education is a concept of education that is considered capable of restoring the cultural character of the Indonesian nation. Where in the concept of education is more emphasis on moral education and religious knowledge as the process of character formation. This can be seen from the development of the curriculum which not only refers to the guidelines set by the National Education Ministry or Ministry of Religious Affairs, but also uses curriculum development programs covering areas of religious insights, interests, and talents as well as social areas of cultures (Ucik Nurul Hidyati: 2019).
The contribution of Islamic boarding school education in advancing character education has proven its existence. Islamic boarding school completeness should be understood and viewed from various aspects because Islamic boarding school has many roles in forming students’ intelligences, characters, and morals. Here are some roles of Islamic boarding school in forming students’ intelligences, characters, and morals:

1. The Role of Islamic Boarding School to be More Focus in Forming Students’ Intelligences, Characters, and Morals.
Students who stay in the boarding school will get more learning process especially related to the religious education than the usual school. It happens because in the Islamic boarding school, the students not only learn about the academic subjects such as Math, science, social, etc, but also tend to improve their characters and morals in their daily lives. Students learn many activities related to form their character and morals. One of simple example is when they meet their Ustadz or Ustadzah on the way, they have to greet them by saying “Assalamu’alaikum” while giving the smile. Another example is Islamic boarding school students have the roles in wearing uniforms in daily activity. All santri tends to use their cap along the day and santriwati tend to use the closed uniform or untransparent with the long veil.

2. The Role of Islamic Boarding School Conducting Character Education in Facing Globalization Era.
From the word global, what is the exact meaning of globalization? Globalization is where everything is growing, everything is developing, where everything is going places, it is the worldwide movements of people, ideas, goods, factories, drugs, medical health or even a virus. There is a process in globalization which impacting and influencing anything that it touches. It advances technology such as mobile phones, aeroplanes, telephones and the internet have made the growth of communication and networks possible. This means people and countries can exchange information and goods effectively and efficiently. This globalization thing can be a very profitable for those who can use it properly but it can also be a very dangerous weapon for those who don’t know how to deal with it wisely.
In Islamic boarding school, the students will reduce the negative impact of the globalization because they are not allowed to bring their phones or even use them in the boarding school. Additionally, when the students need to use phones or laptops to search for information or knowledge, they usually will be accompanied by their Ustadz or Ustadzah. So it will reduce the possibilities toward negative impact of globalization.

3. The Role of Islamic Boarding School in Avoiding Toxic Information
Do you know that most people in this world can not live without social media? This might sound a little bit frightening but it happened. People use social media for everything, from using it just for fun until the serious one. Social media users use social media to communicate with others, to share their thoughts, their information, their research, showing their abilities or talents, politics and many more things. It has been impacting so many aspects of our life as social media users. As we can see, it is such a piece of cake for us to get information about anything and we have to be able to differentiate whether this information is toxic or not. Toxic information is the information that has a bad influence for those who consume it. Therefore, it is very important for us to be able to control how we use social media. But if we have some difficulties in controlling it, rather we keep using it or not using it at all.
The point being raised here is sometimes there is something that we can’t avoid. Sometimes we are face with the battle of two evils and we are forced to engaged in something. It affects the way we live our life. Sometimes we don’t care with the person who stand beside us because we are busy with our phone, laptop and gadget. We become careless with anything that happened surround us. We become more selfless and arrogant. That is one of the global crisis. Islamic boarding school has the important role in controlling students to avoid the toxic information which is stated above.

4. The Role of Islamic Boarding School in Forming Students’ Religious Consistently
Many religious activities that Islamic boarding school students can do in the school or even dormitory. They are always taught by their Ustadz or Ustadzah to keep their worship consistently. Their routinities in the boarding school make them having good characters and morals especially for religious aspects. The Islamic boarding school students are taught to always do their prayer on time. They are also controlled to memorize Al-Qur’an everyday which are after Shubuh and Maghrib prayer. It makes them having a good habit in reading Al-Qur’an. The Islamic boarding school students get used to have the good moral values and characters because they stayed in the religious boarding school. One of Islamic boarding schools in West Sumatera which is ICBS Payakumbuh applied this activities model in forming their students’ religious characters and morals.

5. The Role of Islamic Boarding School in Creating Students’ Discipline and Independent Characters
The Islamic boarding school has the responsibility to shape the personality of the students, as well as the personality of the students themselves. The Islamic boarding school provides their students with a strong discipline and independent character. The students will do their activities on time and independently. For example: they go to the school on time, they do their prayer on time, they face their daily lives by themselves. It is because they are given the habituation during boarding school life style.

In conclusion, you probably might wonder what makes Islamic boarding school so special. In Islamic boarding school, students are taught to be open to the world. We are not only sitting in our room to read and memorize Al-Quran, but we are also taught to be more social with the environment inside and outside the school. For 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, students learn to respect our teachers, parents, friends, and even the nature. Those who have knowledge doesn’t mean they have attitude but those who have attitude they own knowledge. Students practice how to be nice and having a manner with people at home, public places and basically anywhere and anytime. That is how they are taught to be smart, disciplined, creative and having strong character regardless of our focus of study. In Islamic boarding school, students are also taught to be ready to face the world with all its complexity. Students are even taught to be the generation who can change the world into a better place to live in. In Islamic boarding school, we naturally learn and grow from our routine and experiences so we can be successful in our life.

Reference
Hidayati Nurul Ucik. 2019. “The Role of Boarding School in Building-Young Generation Character”. Dubai. Saudi Journal of Humanities and Social Science