The Strategy of Principal In Instilling Religious Character In Muhammadiyah Elementary School

The most recent research showed that religious character is a character that was considered most important by the people of Indonesia in facing the challenges of modern life. Therefore, the religious character was needed to be instilled in the young generation through various channels, especially at formal educational institutions. This study aimed to describe the principal's strategy in instilling religious character in students. This research was a type of qualitative research with a case study approach conducted at Al-Mujahidin Muhammadiyah Elementary School, a favourite elementary school in Wonosari Gunungkidul, Indonesia. Data were collected through interviews, observations, and documentation. The collected data were analyzed by inductively interactive data analysis techniques. The results showed that the principal used four strategies in instilling character to students, namely exemplary strategies, habit forming, integration in teaching in the classroom, and reinforcement in the form of reward and punishment. The findings of this study underlined the central role of the principal as a top leader in implementing religious character education in schools.


Introduction
In the latest social development of Indonesian society, religious characters are considered essential to prepare for future generations (Azra, 2012;. Many indicators reinforced the statement, for instance, the higher the religious program rating on government and private television, the women wear the veils in public places, the more developed of study assemblies, and the more popular the music contains religious messages. In the educational field, this phenomenon causes the change of parental choice of education, where the parents preferred to choose the school that contained a robust fundamental religion in sending their children to the school (Azra, 2012;Suyatno, 2015). The religious aspects become one of the main factors for the parents to prepare their young generation.
This phenomenon is also supported by the fact that the young Indonesian generation is currently experiencing a crisis of character. This phenomenon can be seen from various actions of the nation's age, such as corruption (Joseph, et al., 2016;Butt, 2017;Tidey, 2018;Prabowo et al., 2018), terrorism (Chernov Hwang, 2017;Sumpteret al., 2019), and violence (Nilan, 2016;Safaria, 2016;Safaria et al., 2016;Nualsomsri, 2018). The rise of corruption cases in Indonesia has occurred in the entire walks of life.
Meanwhile, the emergence of acts of terrorism in the homeland lately indicates a misunderstanding toward the religion or a small proportion of terrorists have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the faith. On the other hand, there has been an increase in cases of violence among adolescents, brawls, bullying, dishonesty, low respect for older people, poor use of language, decreased work ethic, and Klitih. Klitih is a term often used by the people of Yogyakarta when there is a crime that is in the form of anarchism that occurred on the highway and committed by teenagers, especially those who still occupy in school (Pamungkas, 2018;Sarwono, 2019). Klitih only exists in Yogyakarta that is known as the student city in Indonesia and is not available in other cities. Most of the perpetrators that the deviations and acts of violence, such as klithih, which currently occur are students. Based on the news published on tribunjogja.com, Yogyakarta Police succeeded in arresting five suspects in the action of Klitih, who were sad, they are still students and were known to be in junior high school (Syarifudin, 2017). This condition is the evidence of the decline in the younger nation character, which is replaced by greed and anarchist paradigms. The reality of acts of violence that occur in the world of education is also evidence that character education has not been appropriately implemented.
One of the efforts that can be done to handle the character education questionnaire is to foster religious character through education in the schools because the religious character is the main objective of the implementation of national education. Article 3 of Regulation of Republic of Indonesia Number 20 of 2003 states that national education aims to develop the potential of students to become human beings who believe in and fear God Almighty, have a noble, be healthy, be knowledgeable, be capable, be creative, to be independent, and become democratic and responsible citizens.
Schools have a huge role in the development of student character (Print, 2000;Nguyen, 2016). Schools that are imbued with the spirit of character education will be an effective place to form of individual's character, therefore, they can grow well in their society. Schools are expected to be able to form intelligent and good human beings, furthermore, the schools have a great responsibility in building character education for their students.
The implementation of character values in the schools requires an essential role of the principal. There are five key roles; the principal as an exciting catalyst, as a visionary motivator, as a controlled link, as a staunch implementer, and as a wise expert (Green & Cameron, 2008). As an enraptured catalyst, a school principal demands more focus on identifying the discrepancy from what it is and what it should be. On the other hand, observing the factual truth process that is poor in quality also becomes a way to carry out a good alteration. This role is effectively used in the restructuring process of the Organization, which facing the alteration in every activity can be wellidentified. The role of the school principal as a visionary motivator demands to focus on utilizing the existing resources, both human resources and other natural resources. The school principal has a role in inspiring, motivating, and involving all of the school residents to involve in advance the school in the future by using emotional bonding and improve the collectivism among the school personnel. Also, a school principal as a restrained connector, it means that in this role, all of the school personnel can perform optimal communication both horizontally and vertically. This role also can build Subordinates' selfregulation so that they perform an excellent task without any order from their boss. The role of the school principal as a strong implementer emphasizes focusing on project executor. The principle that is always carried out in this role is timeliness, quality, and budget efficiency. Work that adheres to the plan will provide success for the school institution. The role of the headmaster as a wise expert relates to innovation and creativity, where the headmaster focuses on creating a new concept or that is already in the school's strategic plan. The school principal plans a grand The European Educational Researcher | 69 design until the school program is carried out (Green & Cameron, 2008).
The implementation of character education requires all school personnel to be role models for the students in daily learning activities. The effective role of the principal is needed in managing the school culture, one of the ways is by conditioning the whole school personnel to reflect the ideal model for their students.
Another effort is to implement effective learning management that is integrated into each subject through the applied curriculum. The principal has a vital role in encouraging the realization of the school's vision, mission, goals, and targets through programs that are carried out in a planned and gradual manner (Mulyasa, 2016 This religious character is essential to be instilled in the younger generation through various strategies. Nurdin (2015) stated that the obstacles to implementing character education are actors who can not be role models. The role of educators, principals, and teachers as an example for students is a determining factor for the success of character education (Ulavere & Veisson, 2015).  including teachers, students, or employees (Widodo, 2018). According to Aslamiah (2015), character education can be instilled with special strategies for students with some strategies as follows:

Providing an Example
In terminology, exemplary behavior means actions or everything that should be emulated or exemplified (Education, 1995). Exemplary behavior is an action or everything that can be imitated or followed by someone from someone else who does or makes it happen so that the person being followed is called an example. In this context, the exemplary behavior is an action that can be presented as an educational tool, that is a good example. Furthermore, it can be defined that the model is an educational strategy that is applied by giving a good example in real behavior.
Being a role model is part of an effective strategy in preparing and forming students morally, spiritually, and socially. A school principal and teacher is an ideal example in the student views whose behavior and courtesy will be imitated. All of the examples will be attached to the students themselves in the form of words, actions, material, sensory, and spiritual.
However, the students who directly look at and involve the immoral education with their own eyes, even though they potentially have a good character and have received the strong basics of noble education, they will be lost their positive and laudable character.
In this case, the principal must be a role model for school residents and even parents. The principal also gives an example for teachers, employees, students, and even parents/guardians by putting forward a disciplined and assertive attitude in terms of time. The principal encourages all of the teachers and employees to be good character models for entire students. The spirit and hard work that the headmaster must have is highly influential for the realization of character education on the school condition and will be created in the school environment. The exemplary strategy in instilling character is classified into 2, namely exemplary directly and indirectly (Taklimudin, 2018).

Direct strategy:
An example is directly carried out by the principal, where he becomes a role model for school residents and parents of students. The headmaster also gives an example for teachers, employees, students, and even parents/guardians (Widodo, 2018 The leader allows others to act responsibly for the group's success by increasing their competence and confidence in their abilities as well as listening to their ideas and following them up by involving them in important decisions and acknowledging also rewarding their contributions.

Forming a Habit
A habit-forming strategy is a way that can be used to familiarize students with thinking, behaving, and acting under Islamic religious teachings (Arief, 2002).
This strategy is highly practical in fostering and shaping the character of early childhood in increasing the habits in carrying out an activity in school. The nature of habit formation consists of experience and practice.
In educational psychology, the method of forming a habit is known as operant conditioning, teaching students to get used to commendable behavior, discipline, study hard, work hard, sincere, honest, and responsibility for every task that has been given.
Forming a habit is something that is intentionally done repeatedlyfurthermore, something can become a habit. Habit is actually about the experience of getting used to. Habituated behavior determines humanity as something special, which can save strength because it will become an inherent and spontaneous habit, moreover, the power can be used for various activities in every work and other activities (Mulyasa, 2003).
In daily life, forming a good habit is very important, because many people do and behave just because of the habit itself. Habit-forming behavior can encourage the people in accelerating behavior, without any habit, a person's life will go slowly because before doing any action, the people must think first about what they will do. Forming a habit needs to be applied by the teacher in the process of character formation in order to familiarize students with good and laudable traits so that the activities carried out by students are recorded positively (Mulyasa, 2003). Further, Mulyasa (2003) stated that education through habits could be implemented as follows: a) Programmed activities in learning can be carried out with specific planning in a certain period to develop learners in personal, groups, or classical.
b) Unprogrammed habituated activities include routine, spontaneous, and exemplary habits.
Except for habit formation through routine school activities, it is also carried out with appeals or school slogans. Following the opinion of Supraptiningrum and Agustini (2015), they stated that habit could be applied using appeals or aphorisms or slogans in the school environment. With the slogans, aphorisms, and the motto posted on the walls of the school, it is expected to be able to create a learning environment that triggers students' enthusiasm in trying and learning to achieve their goals.

Integration in School Teaching
In the opinion of Koesoema (2010;, one of the character education methodologies is teaching.
Teaching character education is in order to introduce theoretical knowledge about value concepts.
Understanding this concept must be part of understanding character education itself. Because the Intensifying the meetings among teachers in school service meetings. The principal orders the teachers to plan and implement the integration of specific character values in the learning process, and the principal creates an intensive policy to carry out certain activities that support the culture and inculcation of character in the school environment (Widodo, 2018). In this case, the teacher actively teaches the students about the importance of values, norms, and habits of praiseworthy character, which becomes the priority of the school by integrating them into each subject (Rudolf, 2019).

Reinforcing a character
Reinforcement is any form of response that includes verbal or nonverbal as feedback towards student behavior (Usman, 2010). Similarly stated by Hasibuan (2008), providing reinforcement is defined as behavior in responding to student's certain behaviors positively that enable the behavior to reappear, also intended to reward or encourage the students, therefore, they more actively participate in interactions of teaching and learning.
In order for the acculturation of the character can develop and run effectively, it must be supported by

Participants
The research participants in this study were the principal, teachers, employees, and students. The technique of taking research participants is purposive sampling, namely the technique of taking data sources with certain considerations.

Technique Data Collection and Analysis
Research data were collected through three techniques, namely Semi-structured interviews, nonparticipant observation, and documentation Interviews are conducted to principals, teachers, employees, and students. In conducting the interviews, the researcher was guided by interview guidelines prepared before.

Providing an Example
To realize the religious character in the school, the principal gives a good example to all of the school members. Based on observations and interviews, the principal gives an example through direct actions that are reflected in daily activities, furthermore, it can be an example for all of the school members.
Based on the results of the interview, AN said that the  According to the results of interviews with various sources, it can be concluded that the principal can provide an example in terms of orderly Worship.

Forming a Habit
Forming a habit is an action that is deliberately carried out repeatedly and continuously so that it can become a habit. The habit is based on accustomed experiences.
Habituated behavior aims to teach students to get used to commendable behavior. The application of habit carried out by the principal in the form of routine activities and appeals. Routine activities are activities carried out by students continuously and consistently.
Routine activities that are used by principals to instil religious character in students include rememorizing (Murajaah) short letters of Al-Qur'an, Tahfidz or rememorize (Murajaah) juz 29 and or juz 30, Tahsinul Qur'an, Dhuha Sunnah Prayers, Dhuhr prayer in congregation and cult, and also religious Literacy.
Forming habit aims to shape religious character while meeting school curriculum targets. As interview results delivered by AN: There are many habits in this which support the religious character. This habit has been programmed starting from the morning, start from the students going to school until school finished, we always emphasize the habit.
Starting from half-past seven in the morning,   (Sutrop, et al. 2013).
The next strategy, namely the integration strategy into teaching activities is carried out by ensuring all of the teachers to plan and implement the integration of religious character values in the learning process to instill students' religious character continuously through the process of teaching and learning activities.
The whole teachers are required to integrate religious characters through the subjects they teach (Koesoema, 2010). Whatever the subject, the teacher is required to contribute to forming students' religious character.

| A S T U T I , S U Y A T N O , & Y O Y O
This is done by including the religious character in the learning implementation plan, and also implementing religious character in the entire learning sequences such as in the initial learning activities, core activities, and final learning activities. This fact shows that the principal demands all of the teachers to be responsible for developing students' religious character and not only imposes to Islamic education teachers. This finding is in line with the results of previous studies which state that character education must be instilled by all of the subject teachers (Krull, 2000;Novianti, 2017). The responsibility to instill character must not only be borne by certain subjects but must be spread across all of the subjects (Sutiyono, 2013).
The fourth strategy, strengthening the principal character (reinforcing) in instilling religious character, is done by giving rewards and punishments to students. An appreciation is used as a character reinforcement because giving a gift will be able to arouse and maintain student motivation and can control or change bad attitudes into good attitudes. To support this strategy, the school gave awards that were packaged in the Al Mujahidin Elementary School Award along with the Tahfidzul Qur'an graduation.
This activity is an annual activity carried out by the school to appreciate students who have completed memorizing Juz 29 and 30 as well as teachers and employees who have the best performance. Usman (2010) states that reinforcement is all of the forms of responses, both verbal and nonverbal, which aims to strengthen student behavior. As conveyed by Hasibuan (2008), by giving reinforcement in the form of rewards, students will be interested in repeating the good behavior later, and vice versa, by giving punishment, students do not tend to repeat the bad behavior.

Conclusion
According to the research, it is found four strategies of the school principal in instilling a student's religious character; through strategy, role model, habit formation, integration in-class learning, and reinforcement. Through these four strategies were undertaken by the school principal, Al-Mujahidin elementary school of Wonosari become a school that emphasizes on the formation of religious characters.