How do I really see each student when everything is about test scores?

The system wants to turn each child into a score and you into a machine that delivers them. You feel how wrong that is, because you actually see the kids, and you know they are far more than a number on a test. That refusal to look away is the best thing in you as a teacher. You cannot single-handedly overthrow the testing machine. But inside your own room, you decide what a child is. You can meet the quiet one, notice the one having a hard week, remember that the struggling reader is a whole person and not a data point. The system measures a sliver. You get to see the rest. Each day, truly see one child who might otherwise be overlooked. Learn something real about them, say something that tells them they were noticed. That is not extra to the job; against everything that says just process them, it is the job. One seen child at a time is how you keep teaching human.