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I'm a Superhero – I teach Writer gives a Green Lantern shout out to former teacher
Feburary 17, 2005 On the surface Ernest Kuehl may appear to be just another physics teacher, but his undershirt proclaims his real role. He leads a ring of educators in New York 's public schools! They take attendance! They teach! They grade! They inspire! They prepare students to overcome insurmountable challenges, like getting a job. He may not be faster than a speeding bullet. He backs away from tall buildings — don't even think about a single bound. But in the lives of many students — not the least of which is a young writer who became a comic-book author — he's more powerful than a locomotive. Ernest Kuehl is a teacher — one immortalized in the Sept. 3, 2003, issue of the Green Lantern when, after saving the world, the superhero proclaims, "If only my physics teacher Mr. Kuehl could see me now." Who was this cool character who so influenced writer Benjamin Raab to pay tribute in issue no. 16, titled "Lights Out?" New York Teacher tracked down Kuehl in his first-floor physics classroom at Lawrence High School in Nassau County . We needed to know — did this mild-mannered, Mr. Rogers-look-alike know he'd had the willpower and imagination to control the future of countless students for the past 30 years? Certainly not, he protested. "Just goes to show — you never know what impact you've had on your students," said Kuehl. Truth be told, Kuehl must have had an inkling. His classroom is festooned with tributes in the form of the character "Ernie" from Sesame Street , that students have given him throughout the years. One doll has been changed by mystical forces to eerily resemble Kuehl's graying hair. In the plot line of the strip, Kyle Rayner is a commercial artist who transforms into the Green Lantern to save the world from insurmountable threats aided by a power ring. Shiro Nova, an assassin from outer space sets off a temporal acceleration while trying to capture the super hero. Luckily for Earth and the rest of the cosmos, the Green Lantern not only captures Shiro Nova, but also turns the temporal process against itself and absorbs the residual energy into his ring. "You used entropy ... to prevent entropy?" asks an extraterrestrial cat in the pivotal panel. "Genius!" "If only my high school physics teacher, Mr. Kuehl, could see me now," replies the Green Lantern. Kuehl, bursts with pride at the public kudos. But he and Raab both admit the physics is a bit faulty. Entropy is the amount of disorder within a system or a measurement of the spontaneous dispersal of energy, so you can't use entropy to prevent entropy. Kuehl is a member of the Lawrence Teachers Association, led by Steve Clements. For 1988 graduate Raab, the comic book is a way to say thank you to many: "Please send my regards to Mr. Scoblete, Ms. McKeveny, Mr. Brady, Mr. Mahfouda, Mr. Jacovides and all the other teachers who worked so hard to teach me so much — only to find that their efforts resulted in me pursuing a career telling stories about people in tights beating the living crap out of each other," Raab writes in an e-mail that ended with this ominous warning. "Make sure to warn them that when they least expect it, they too may find their names added to the annals of modern American pop culture." - Betsy Sandberg |
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