How do I really teach when the system gets in the way?

You got into this to see children, actual kids, and you are learning to do it. But the paperwork, the testing, the endless demands keep shoving the real teaching to the margins. That frustration is not you failing. It is you caring about the right thing in a system that often forgets it. You will not fix the whole system this year, and trying to will only exhaust you. What you can protect is the small human moments the system cannot fully take. A minute of real attention on one child still lands. It still shapes a life. The demands are loud, but they are not the whole of what you do. Pick one small ritual that is just teaching, not compliance. A morning check-in, a question you always ask, two minutes with a struggling kid. Guard that fiercely. It is where the real work lives, and keeping even a corner of it reminds you why you came.