No it's fecking NOT! It is most certainly NOT "the norm" anywhere for TEACHERS to openly behave that way.

I spent all my childhood in the South (your "old Confederacy to the new). I mostly grew up in Southern red-state rural small towns. I went to high school in a farm town in western Tennessee. Right now, I live in a Southern small rural red-state town – and all the small towns around me are still deep-Trump country. I lived in a small Midwest rural area for 17 years and it did not happen. My neice, right now, lives in a small rural Louisiana town, with a daughter in middle school, and it does not happen. My nephew lives in tiny farming town in Tennessee and it does not happen. Teachers do not do crap like that.

What that teacher did is not bullying – IT IS BLATANT AND OPEN CHILD ABUSE. And, that is not acceptable anywhere – in fact, it's a fecking crime!

You may find teachers who will ignore kids doing it. But, you do not find teachers pushing kids to do it. Nor do you find teachers themselves doing it out in open like that! This child abuser is an extreme outlier of a teacher, even for far right red states!