I had a speach inpediment when i was young, wich made me a great target for bullies. I was kicked out of school many times for fighting, as it was my only recourse at the time. Any attempts at a verbale retaliation was stopped dead with more laughter and insults. Once i had overcome my speach problems, I had a big chip on my shoulder and became a bully myself. My targets were not the weak or geeks, they were the jocks and the biggest and strongest around. looking back it was very stupid and very funny, a little guy picking on kids 3-5 years older and much larger.
A new student came to my school who had a speach problem and I became his first friend in the school, however it didnt take long before i saw he was a bully, picking on younger and weaker kids. We ended up fighting, and it was one of the funniest memmories I have of childhood. He was an experienced fighter with a brown belt in one of the martial arts ( I forget which one), so it didnt take him long to have me down and sitting on my chest. He started to rain down punches to my face, and all i could do was laugh, I said 'is that supposed to hurt' and couldnt stop laughing. There was a lot of kids watching, and they started to laugh when they heard what I said, even one of the teachers started to laugh as she watched. The bully started to cry and ran home, he didnt come to school for days. when he finaly did return, I greated him with a hand shake and said ' We arnt gonna have any more problems are we?' He said no and he didnt pick on anyone after that, and I made sure no one picked on him because of me laughing at him. After that the only fights i had in school were with bullies, and it didnt take long before all the bullying stopped at my school. The school became a much friendlier place, grades picked up across the board, and everyone helped anyone they could. We only had 150 students, but it amazing how well we all worked together.
It is interesting how things are the same all over the world, kids are kids and there is always going to be someone there trying to make themself feel better at the expence of others.