There's that saying... Dog bites man is not news. Man bites dog is.

Fights happen at school all the time...so it seems normal.

It's normal cuz kids are assholes. I taught my child self defense. If you don't teach your children yourself, they're easily bullied.

Kids are dumb.

Normal masculine teasing is a two player game and if the players aren't experienced enough to play, dumb stuff gets out of hand. Happens in adult settings too where practical joke wars get out of hand, for example. So adult-ish male jokes around with adult-ish male, "yer mom" jokes are exchanged, its all cool.

Inexperienced jock kid calls inexperienced nerd kid a nerd, jock kid stands there waiting "he's supposed to "yer mom" me back" meanwhile nerd kid panics and starts looking for a safe space. And sometimes it escalates.

And that's why adult teachers, especially male teachers, used to ignore bullying. So as a grown adult I'm supposed to tell the nerd kid how to "yer mom" the jock kid? Can't you kids figure this stuff out on your own like 99% of the population? Clearly not...

I dunno, when I turned around and shoved my bully (he was a loser-stoner, not a jock) into the wall after he was shoving me while I was taking a piss, he didn't say "Oh hey cool, it's a two player game, I like this guy", he punched me in the head 5 times.

But sure, it's just kids being dumb and silly.

The nerd kid thinks this behavior is what makes someone an unreliable asshole in the first place. He's got a different way of thinking about these kinds of insults and you're saying he should just mimick ass hattery in order to diffuse the situation, which is an explanation that doesn't make sense to him.