Early Childhood Character Education Utilizing Innovative Communication Media Wayang Beber Fable

This research uses the Wayang Beber Fable performance media. Fable stories attract the attention of young children. The goal is that Wayang Beber Fable can be used as an innovative medium for early childhood character education. Observations and interviews were carried out for data collection. The aim is to be able to evaluate teachers' difficulties. The evaluation results show that teachers lack teaching aids for character education. As a solution, workshops and performances are held for students. The workshop aims to learn how to play and make Wayang Beber Fable. The teachers succeeded in playing Wayang Beber Fable independently. This allows teachers to develop performance stories relevant to children's needs. Every Wayang Beber Fable performance always has a moral message in it. Early childhood needs moral teachings. At this stage, children learn to understand the world around them. Wayang Beber Fable can be an innovative medium for early childhood character education. It can even be integrated into a broader character education curriculum. Educators now have alternative media for character education teaching aids that are innovative and interactive.


Introduction
Children's education is an area that requires intensive involvement from parents and educators.This is the period when children absorb many things in character formation.Educators must choose the proper literary reading to enrich children's character potential and provide the encouragement they need (Stakić & Janković, 2022).Reading quality literature is very important to strengthen their personal qualities.Through academic texts full of moral values, children's character formation can be well developed.In order to facilitate young people to think critically participate actively and collaboratively.Support in the educational process must include providing space for them to express their opinions and passions (Jeremić et al., 2022).Children can express interests and passions from an early age.The role of parents and teachers is very crucial in this matter.Its role is crucial to improving parents' abilities in the educational process (Milosavljević Đukić et al., 2022).Parents hold essential responsibilities.Even parallel to teachers in guiding children's character formation.Then, it continues and is reinforced at home.Forming moral values and personality is essential in early childhood character education.The basis of children's mental development is primarily determined by character formation.In childhood, they learn to understand the world around them.Learn to differentiate between right and wrong actions.This period requires laying a solid foundation.So that character development can develop well.At this stage, children are vulnerable to external influences.Children need someone to look up to.At this stage, children are very vulnerable and affected in their development.They digest the values and attitudes that will form the basis of their behavior.Efficient and effective character education has become a top priority in contrast to reality.Very often, character education encounters challenges.Educators often experience this in forming the character of early childhood.Educators lack exciting and practical teaching aids.
The 2013 curriculum has undergone changes and revisions to develop character and skills education in the 21st-century era (Widya et al., 2020).Character education is crucial to teach from an early age.The interactive learning process is developing very quickly.The use of interactive multimedia provides benefits for children.Especially for more exciting and efficient results (Syawaludin et al., 2019).The use of learning media in schools still needs to be improved.The form is still elementary in the form of pictures.As a result, character education becomes less varied.Students become less interested in participating in the learning process.Previously, character education was only through religious and civics lessons.A more effective approach uses socio-cultural and religious values (Tohri et al., 2022).This is the focus of developing early childhood character education.The values contained in local and regional wisdom can provide innovative choices.Local wisdom can be used to develop character education.This can help teachers implement character education (Syamsi & Tahar, 2021).One local wisdom that can be utilized is the Wayang Beber performance.The Wayang Beber performance is like a theater that uses image media.Initially, the Wayang Beber show was played in the palace environment.Then, it moved outside the palace or in the village centuries ago (Pretkovic & Skrinjaric, 2017).Wayang Beber has the potential to be used as an innovative medium for character education.The value of local wisdom is the knowledge that each region has, which is unique in itself.Utilization of local wisdom values can contribute to character education.Local wisdom can be a unique cultural characteristic that contains inspirational values and can be used as a guide for life (Miranti et al., 2021).
Utilization of local wisdom can start from the family environment.Children receive their first education from the family.External cultural and lifestyle influences influence the mental development of millennial children.Parents have a role in parenting patterns today (Nugroho & Sari, 2020).In contrast to school, the teaching pattern uses agreed curriculum standards.Local wisdom can be included in the character education curriculum.Integrating cultural values in learning can enrich the school curriculum.So, it is more suited to the needs of early childhood (Mujiburrahman, 2022).Local wisdom values can be taught in extracurricular activities.Cultural traditions contained in local wisdom can shape the identity of the younger generation.The value content is eternal and unique (Saihu, 2019).Local wisdom can be a tool for forming the character and identity of the younger generation.Every aspect of local wisdom has inspirational value.It can be used as a role model and guide for everyday life.Indonesia has a rich and diverse culture.Every culture has noble values that need to be preserved.These values are known as local wisdom.These values can be adopted and used for education (Ramdani, 2018).The role of local wisdom is very significant and irreplaceable.This can be utilized and integrated into the world of character education.Local wisdom can include the local community's view of life as a response to carrying out their daily lives (Fajarini, 2014).Educators have obstacles in providing teaching aids for innovative character education.Old methods often need to attract students' interest and attention.More creative and child-oriented solutions are necessary.Even if necessary, it can be understood and imbued with moral values for children.Wayang Beber Fabel is a performance using images and stories as media.The story raised is a fable.The way to play is by rolling up the picture and being pulled by a puppeteer.Each performance contains moral values that it wants to convey to the audience.
The method of collecting data for this research is through observation and interviews.The evaluation results are that educators have difficulty providing character education teaching aids.The conventional approach used by educators is less successful.Usually, educators only use straightforward teaching aids for character education.This causes character education to attract less interest from children.The props are still very simple in the form of pictures.Making images is done using minimal means, using paper and dyes.As a solution, a workshop was held involving educators and students.This workshop aims to teach how to play and make Wayang Beber Fable.Every Wayang Beber Fable performance has a moral message in it.As a result, the workshop succeeded in training educators to play Wayang Beber Fable.Educators can present performances with exciting and attractive stories.The hope is that students can understand and absorb these moral values.Educators are allowed to develop stories according to children's needs.This can impact the development of more innovative, creative and effective character education methods.They are helping to grow children with integrity, noble character and strong character.The Beber Fable Wayang Show has the potential to be used as an approach to children's education in other places that have similar obstacles.

Methodology
This research was designed using the Wayang Beber Fabel performance for character education.In addition, it can be used to determine its effectiveness.An initial evaluation of existing teaching practices is necessary.The focus is on the difficulties educators face in providing attractive character education teaching aids.Observations and interviews are used to collect data.The results show the shortcomings of the character education methods used so far.Workshops are held to help educators.After attending the workshop, you can play Wayang Beber Fabel independently.Can develop the story according to the child's character education needs.Observations were carried out to determine the responses of students and parents in understanding the performance.Data analysis is used to see the progress and level of understanding of educators after attending the workshop.The results can be seen regarding the effectiveness of the Wayang Beber Fabel performance.Wayang Beber Fable can be an alternative innovative medium for character education.It can become a basis for developing early childhood character education.

Figure 1 Research Block Diagram
The illustration above reflects the steps in a preliminary study.First, identify and evaluate needs in early childhood education.Next is holding workshops and performances specifically for educators.Educators can learn Wayang Beber Fable's performance techniques.Educators are allowed to create their performances.Every Wayang Beber Fable performance has a moral message to convey.Implementation of this workshop occurs in the next stage, with educators performing performances observed by the student's parents.Then, data was collected through direct observation and interviews with educators.Evaluations are carried out to measure teacher progress, quality of performances, and responses from children and parents.The final block is about conclusions and impacts.To evaluate the extent to which Wayang Beber Fabel effectively supports early childhood character education.

Results and Discussion
This research represents the use of Wayang Beber Fabel performances for early childhood character education.From the implementation of workshops and performances, it can be seen the importance of alternative educational teaching aids.From the results of interviews and observations, a clear picture can be seen regarding the implementation of interactive and exciting teaching aids.This can be seen from the enthusiasm of educators in participating in the workshop.Students and parents responded very well to the Wayang Beber Fabel performance.The moral teaching values in the Wayang Beber Fabel performance are very much needed for character education (Anggraeni & Rafiyanti, 2022).
Wayang Beber has yet to be known to people in cities and rural areas.This is because Wayang Beber performances are rarely staged nowadays.The influence of Western culture makes young people less interested in traditional art, like the fate of Wayang Beber, which has been abandoned by its fans (Hariyadi et al., 2018).This differs from Shadow Puppetry and Wayang Golek, which are often performed.The history of the existence of Wayang Beber is older than the two Wayang.Ma Huan's notes mention a Wayang Beber performance when he visited Majapahit.Even Wayang Beber achieved glory during the Majapahit and Demak kingdoms.Raden Fatah, the first king of Demak, was even the puppeteer of Wayang Beber (Sugiharjanto, 2018).Wayang Beber, in the past, was often played in palace environments.Then, it fell into decline and was played outside the palace.The story is about the Panji cycle.A cycle that tells the love story of Raden Panji with Dewi Sekartaji (Noegroho, 2023).The story of the Wayang Beber performance has a standard or story that cannot be changed.The story of Panji, native to the Indonesian archipelago, spread throughout Southeast Asia.The Panji story is different from the Mahabharata story.The Panji story is written in kakawin form, including the Kidung type (Kievan, 2020).This is a problem in itself and causes it not to develop.The remaining artifacts of Wayang Beber are in the Pacitan and Wonosari areas.The condition needs to be better maintained (Maharsi, 2019).Both have more or less the same story.Only the characters are different.If you come from Pacitan, you will use the characters Jaka Kembang Kuning and Dewi Sekartaji.Meanwhile, the Wonosari version uses the character Remeng Mangun Jaya (Pratama & Marwati, 2020).Wayang Beber artifacts can be found in Wonosarai and Pacitan.The legacy of Wayang Beber is ancient, approximately 300 years old.The condition of Wayang Beber is ancient and needs to be better maintained.There are only two places that still have Wayang Beber, namely Wonosari and Pacitan, but unfortunately, both are in bad condition.(Maharsi, 2019) The development of Wayang Beber has adapted to the surrounding conditions.The phenomenon of modern life has led to the creation of new Wayang Beber creations.Like Wayang Beber Metropolitan, it combines elements of art and performance adapted to modern phenomena (Aditya et al., 2021).Wayang Beber is a performance made using typical Daluang paper.Then, it will be told and played by a puppeteer (Praisra et al., 2021).Apart from Wayang Beber Metropolitan there is Wayang Beber Tani.The development is in the Solo area of Central Java.Wayang Beber Tani focuses on the story of changing agricultural seasons.Wayang Beber Tani tells the story of rural life-performances from village to village.The performance takes about ten to twenty minutes and involves children (Nurhikmah, 2018).This differs from Wayang Beber Fabel, an adaptation of the traditional version.The story uses a fable.Young children are very interested and enthusiastic about listening to fairy tales.In early childhood education, fairy tales can be used as a learning tool (Zulkifli, 2013), especially if it is presented interestingly and attractively.Every fairy tale contains moral values.Moral teachings are perfect to give to children.Educative moral values can be used for innovative educational media (Izzah et al., 2020).

Figure 2. Performance Wayang Beber Fable
The Wayang Beber Fabel show is designed as an alternative medium for character education.The fable story was chosen because the story is interesting to children.Every Wayang Beber Fable performance always includes moral teachings.Fable stories are short and have moral content at the end of the story.The local wisdom of Wayang Beber's fable is a tool that is rich in meaning and moral teachings.Stories accompanied by interesting pictures make for attractive and valuable viewing (Darihastining et al., 2020).The moral teachings conveyed in each performance are invaluable values.It can even be used as an example and a guide for children.A good and structured approach will form quality individuals.Individuals who can maintain character values throughout life.Without being influenced by external disturbances (Ati et al., 2021).
All educators play a role in implementing character education policies.Through a curriculum that prioritizes the values contained in the teachings it taught (Qoyyimah, 2018).Wayang Beber Fable can attract the attention of young children.The Wayang Beber tradition inspired the creation of the Wayang Beber Fable.The habits carried out by the community will develop into traditions or culture (Saputri et al., 2019).Local wisdom can be utilized for character education.The story of Wayang Beber has been adapted to suit the times.Local community values that are not developed are considered local community values (Rozi et al., 2021).Wayang Beber performances traditionally use Javanese.The adaptation process for Wayang Beber Fabel uses Indonesian.So that the wider community can accept it, local wisdom can be used to strengthen early childhood character education (Hidayati et al., 2020).
From observations during the teaching and learning process, character education still uses simple teaching aids.According to Horny and Pamwell, a character is a person's mental quality or morality.This moral strength will shape a person's name or reputation (Anggraeni & Rafiyanti, 2022).The story of the Wayang Beber Fabel show has positive character values.These values are beneficial for character formation.Children tend to easily follow the words spoken by their parents (Mustofa, 2019).The education carried out at AL-HAYYU Kindergarten still uses simple pictures for storytelling.This shows the need for innovative and exciting teaching aids according to children's interests.At an early age, children are very interested in bright pictures and colors.The use of image media is considered more effective in learning.Moreover, children enjoy watching films and are attracted to various images (Khotimah et al., 2020).The results of observations and interviews show that character education teaching aids are essential.As an alternative, researchers create a workshop.The aim is to introduce how to play the Wayang Beber Fabel show.The aim is for educators to be able to play Wayang Beber Fabel independently.You can even develop the story according to your needs.Wayang Beber performances can be an innovative alternative in early childhood character education.Wayang Beber Fabel's approach is very promising.It can be an exciting and effective teaching tool for children's character education.Educators are involved in training or workshops.Educators are finally able to put on performances independently.Able to develop the story.He can insert moral values into his performances.This gives positive results.Parents and students responded well and positively.This method shows its effectiveness in forming children's character.Further research is needed to test long-term effectiveness.It can even be integrated into a broader character education curriculum.

Conclusion
The Beber Fable Puppet Performance Method can be used as an innovative medium for character education.Wayang beber can be used as an alternative demonstration medium for educators.The world of education has a choice of character education teaching aids.Responses from students and parents are indicators of acceptance of this method.This method can be integrated into the character education curriculum.Indirectly participate in preserving and maintaining local wisdom.Local wisdom also has values that can be utilized in education.The moral values in each show are very positive and beneficial for children.This method is usually implemented more widely.It can encourage further research to benefit the world of children's education.