From Moralizing to Textual Mechanization: The Trajectory of Efferent Reduction and Aesthetic Erosion in Teaching Folkloric Texts

This study investigates how 48 folktales from the official textbooks of Indonesian subjects at the elementary through high school levels are presented, as well as the reductions that occur as a result of pedagogical processes. Focusing on text reduction and its evaluation, the main objective of this study is to test the application of Bloom’s cognition taxonomy and pedagogical reduction through the framework of transactional reading theory. Research data were collected by documenting folktale texts from official textbooks and processed using Pedagogical Critical Discourse Analysis. The findings of this study indicate a shift toward reduction. From moralizing at the elementary school level, continuing to structural mechanization at the junior high school level, and leading to pragmatic functionalism at the high school level. All three consistently destroy aesthetic experiences and perpetuate efferent attitudes in reading folktale. This study argues that learning a folktale using an efferent approach is not the most appropriate. Folktale should be taught aesthetically, rather than efferently. This aesthetic treatment will perpetuate the folktale as indigenous knowledge.