Performer teaches Glen Ellyn kids about character

Watch Tim Hannig on stage and you're left wondering whether he trained for deep-sea diving.

In 45 minutes, Hannig seamlessly moves from singing to magic tricks to conversing with a puppet bird named Vern to making balloon animals. And, at the end, he somehow isn't gasping for air.

The reason for the feverish pace? Hannig knows his audience.

"When you think about how much time they're in front of TV or their devices, I really don't have much time with them, and I'm trying to pack fun and message into the same thing," he says after a recent performance of his Pro-Kids Show at Westfield Elementary in Glen Ellyn.

Hannig - who has seven children of his own between the ages of 1 and 16 - knows how easily students can get distracted, how they can tune out important messages thinly veiled in a cheesy joke.

Kids, Hannig says, are smarter than that.

"One of my theories with the show is 'communicate, don't commentate,'" the 44-year-old from Coal City says.

That means he lets his stories do the talking in roughly 300 shows a year in schools across the Chicago area. It also means there's an art to what, at first, seems like a circus.

At Westfield, Hannig doesn't ease into the show. He starts running between rows of kids in kindergarten through fifth grade, laughing so hard it sounds more like screaming. He's squirting a spray bottle of water into the crowd, and immediately the kids know this isn't some boring, all-school assembly.

Playing to the plugged-in generation, Hannig takes out an iPhone and snippets of music play over the loudspeakers.

"Let's do one your teachers might like," says Hannig, cuing up a weepy Josh Groban.

Then, he plays "Let It Go" from Disney's "Frozen," prompting the boys to roll their eyes and cover their ears.

Now that he has their full attention, Hannig settles into building another kind of "playlist," one of character traits - iCooperate, iCare, iAppreciate, iRespect, i'mResponsible. Through skits, magic tricks, puppetry and a story (a spin on the good Samaritan), Hannig teaches kids how to demonstrate those traits.

"You guys all sound great as an audience when you work together," Hannig says to their applause.

When the music stops, Hannig's voice hushes.

"There's lots of ways you can make a difference here at school, whether you're in the hall or on the bus or the playground, when you're responsible and do what you're supposed to do and care for others and teachers can count on you - that's cooperation," Hannig says. "All of us working together."

During the first week of school, Hannig visited all five schools in Glen Ellyn Elementary District 89. After he leaves, teachers incorporate his tips into their lessons (see some at his website, Pkshow.com). At Westfield, they recognize students who give "warm fuzzies," a phrase Hannig uses for when kids compliment each other.

"We try to deliver a message at the beginning of the year to be respectful and responsible and to act safely," Westfield Principal Stacey Hewick says. "He embeds those character traits into his program for us."

It's now a full-time job for Hannig, who graduated with a degree in communications from Wheaton College and, oddly enough, once sold phone systems for businesses.

"I got a real job because I thought that was what I was supposed to do," he said.

But magic? That was a passion, something he began honing when he was 7. In college, he paid for tuition with bookings at Six Flags, parties and schools.

"Magic is an art form that you're not really doing it unless you're sharing it and performing it," he said.

Every school year, Hannig produces a new show, but he always tells kids to show cooperation, responsibility and respect, even when their teachers or bus drivers aren't watching.

"I really think that's the essence of character," he says, "who you are when no one's looking."