Thanks all for making me smile.

For now, I'm giving them benefit of the doubt that this is assessment, including writing, as you suggest BlueMagic. And happy for them to see what a struggle writing is for DS! But if they "assess" like this repeatedly, they are indeed going to get a heavy dose of hard-headedness a la HK's DD.

On the other hand - I'm happy to get it on the table that DS is not motivated by typical strategies. Hope Teacher can/will learn to give him a good reason WHY. It's the simplest path to getting his buy-in.

And really it's easier than getting in a battle with him (like K teacher did), which only leads to rapidly escalating no-winner hostilities. First grade teacher will probably be an ally here....

Ah school!