Every kid had something they were different about, and it got exploited and made fun of. Then we all moved on to the next kid. Sometimes it was my turn to get picked on. I think there is some value in all of that for the picked on, it builds some amount of mental toughness. And for the most part, it was all stuff you had no control over and was stupid stuff.
In retrospect, there was a kid that now would be labeled autistic (we didn't know the term then), then we picked on some of his odd tendencies. Wish we would have laid off on him a little bit. Out of bounds to pick on someone with a real problem.
Fighting had a minor blind eye turned on it by teachers as well, which I think was good. If somebody needed to fight it out, the teachers seemed to let it go, and let the boys work out some aggression before stepping in.
I was bullied by a boy for a few years in elementary school. Glasses. My clothes weren’t nice. A few other things. Then one day in sixth grade I’d had enough. I was on crutches, and I took one of them, swung it around to get some force, and ... Pow! He never bugged me again.