The kind of behaviour that gets dismissed as “just a little bullying” would get you fired from most workplaces these days. In all my working life I’ve never had to put up with the kind of idiocy that I did in my school years - mostly junior high (grades 7 to 9) - and I was only a minor victim of bullying. I don’t think I learned anything useful from it. Some kids (unlike me at that age) are very sensitive and just can’t take the constant harassment.
Still, given the way our schools are organized and the expectations we have for them - which as far as I can tell is largely to keep kids out of their parents’ hair so they can go to work or whatever - it’s difficult for schools to do much about this. Teachers and other adults in the schools can’t be everywhere at once. And, for that matter, coming to the aid of the bullied and punishing the bullies is likely to make the bullying even worse in the future. I don’t know if this boy told his parents what was going on. Likely the only good solution for this kid would have been to move him to a different school, home schooling, or a private school.
No child should be bullied and the bullies need to be expelled.
In high school in the late 80’s I was being harassed verbally and physically daily by a black male student literally in front of my black female teacher. I asked her repeatedly to make him stop. She would not.
Now I have a hell of a temper. But I tried to handle the right way. One day I came into class and he patted me on the butt when I walked in and I lost it! I went to punching him in the head and calling him the n word every other word with a few other “sentence enhancers.” Guess who decided to get involved then?
I could not put my hands on him and I could not use racial slurs and I told her I tried to get you to make him stop and you wouldn’t so now I bet he won’t touch me again. She told me to apologize and her I told her to f off!
I got expelled for 10 days. The vacation was worth it. That boy wouldn’t even look at me again because I humiliated him.
Then, you're a very lucky person. I deal with it every day.
It's different from school - certainly. The CEO of my company isn't waiting by the door to knock my computer out of my hand as I walk into work. But people are no less aggressive, it's just done in a more socially acceptable fashion. It's important to learn how to deal with difficult people, and the earlier those lessons are learned, the more the damage can be minimized.