in my entire berkeley high tenure i only recall one instance of anyone getting bullied for good academic performance. it was by a teacher.

the setting: algebra ii, taught by mr. henri, who looked like a cross between kip dynamite and henry newman from wet hot american summer. he taught two classes, algebra ii and geometry, and had the peculiar reputation of being beloved by students of the former while being hated by students of the latter. by all accounts, he taught both with the exact same attitude and philosophy, but for some reason the pedagogy hit differently when juggling matrices than it did when juggling proofs. (this wasn't the only unexplainable berkeley high math phenomenon; i'm reminded of how my proficiency at calculus word problems was largely determined by whether the problem was about trucks or boats. trucks i aced, but boats were unsolvable.)

on this day, mr. henri was returning graded exams to the class. the test had been brutal, and we waited silently and despondently as the bespectacled reaper slowly traversed the grid of desks, delivering bad news in red pen to each student in turn. if anyone had arrived with any optimism that day, it was quickly eroded by the universal reaction to the returned tests: slouching shoulders, shuffled papers, a sigh. our recollections of taking the exam weren't pessimistic. it was that bad.

but hey: at least we're all in this together, right? it's not fun to get a bad grade, but when you can look to your left or your right and lock eyes with a fellow student who's in the exact same boat, you can at least temper your despair with solidarity. if anyone demands an explanation for your grade (a parent, a guidance counselor, yourself) it's easier to provide one when everyone else blew it too.

and then the teacher spoke. previously content to dispense disappointment in silence, he'd decided that one particular returned test deserved some audible commentary, ostensibly for the test-taker alone, but delivered loudly and clearly enough to be heard by the entire class:

"curve wrecker."

in an instant, two dozen students looking for a distraction found one. it turns out that exactly one of us hadn't blown it, and henri wanted everyone to know that for some reason. maybe he wanted her to share our discomfort (in degree, if not in kind), or maybe he thought it'd be funny, or maybe he wasn't thinking at all. regardless, she was now wilting under our collective stares just as we'd been wilting under the ambient judgment that attaches to shitty grades in an honors math class.

i doubt the curve wrecker suffered any social consequences of this, because we all occupied castes that encouraged good academic performance, but our cliques didn't overlap enough for me to ever ask her about it. to me, this just became yet another funny berkeley high story: the time the mean class clown was the teacher.