Government's Impact on Character Education Implementation through Wayang Media: Lesson Learned from the State Senior High School 3 of Sukoharjo

Policy maker is the power holder in a government, whether in political, economic, social, cultural, and even education sectors. Policy serves to determine the direction, just like in education sector in Indonesia and particularly in Sukoharjo Regency, based on Character Education for the Nation’s Next Generation. The use of cultural-based learning with puppet (wayang) media is intended to exemplify the good character of human being (Pandhawa group) and the bad one (Kurawa group). Media is one determinant of a successful teaching-learning process with attractive media to make the students comfortable and interested in attending learning at school. The existence of media can improve the students’ interest in learning as in globalization era, the students is very sensitive to technology. The students are more interested in using Hand-phone containing internet facility to search for school material so that the role of media is very decisive. The learning using interview and debriefing media only will not maximally successful. The good media collaborated with interview and debriefing will make the students not-bored in the learning duration of 2 x 45 minutes. In long duration, teacher should have an appropriate method to make the students keep focusing on the subject delivered by the teacher, one example of which is Indonesian language subject in State Senior High School of  Sukoharjo 3, Central Java of Indonesia. Cultural approach is considered as appropriate to improve the character education for students