What a National Ranking Confirmed About the Way Children Learn Best
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
By Natalia Montaño, Founder of Aguamarina Schools
This spring, we received news that filled me with gratitude. Aguamarina Elementary was ranked among the top 7% of schools nationwide in standardized testing, based on the performance of more than 13.8 million students across over 30,000 schools in the United States.
My first reaction wasn't pride. It was reassurance.
Because long before a national ranking recognized our work, our families already knew what happened inside our classrooms. They saw children who woke up excited to go to school, who came home asking questions instead of simply repeating answers, and who felt confident, curious, and deeply engaged in learning.
This recognition simply confirmed something we have believed since the very beginning: children never have to choose between happiness and academic excellence. When learning is meaningful, hands-on, and connected to real life, both grow together.
As I begin this blog, I hope to share not only what we do at Aguamarina, but why we do it. This is a space for the questions that shape education, the research that inspires us, and the conversations every parent and educator deserves to have as our children and the world around them continue to change.
A Question I Hear Often
One question comes up almost every time a family visits our school:
If we choose a more human-centered, innovative school, will our child fall behind academically?
I understand that concern completely. For generations, we've been taught to believe that rigorous learning has to feel difficult, structured, and serious. That joy somehow comes at the expense of achievement. But what if the opposite were true?
What this national ranking tells us is that children don't succeed despite experiencing joy, creativity, movement, and connection. They succeed because of them. Academic excellence and emotional well-being are not competing goals. They are partners. The way children feel shapes the way they learn.
The Child Behind the Student
“Whole-child education” has become a popular phrase in education. For us, it isn't a slogan. It's a daily decision.
It means understanding that children don't leave their emotions at the classroom door. Every feeling they carry into school becomes part of how they pay attention, solve problems, take risks, and build relationships. That's why we care just as much about helping a child navigate disappointment, repair a friendship, or find the confidence to speak in front of others as we do about teaching reading, writing, and mathematics.
Research consistently supports this approach. A landmark study involving more than 270,000 students found that schools intentionally developing social and emotional skills also achieved significantly stronger academic outcomes.
That makes perfect sense to me. A child who feels safe learns differently from a child who feels afraid. A child who feels understood is more willing to ask questions. And curiosity has always been the beginning of real learning.
Why We Protect Play, and Give It Purpose
Our educational journey begins long before elementary school. It begins in our preschools, where children first discover that learning is joyful, meaningful, and full of possibility.
At Aguamarina, play is never “just play.” Every game, project, song, and hands-on experience is designed with a clear purpose and a learning goal. While children are exploring and having fun, they are also developing language, mathematical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, communication, and executive skills.
As children grow, our curriculum grows with them. Each monthly theme is explored across every subject. A topic like The Universe becomes science, mathematics, writing, music, art, and more. By connecting ideas instead of teaching them in isolation, learning becomes deeper, more meaningful, and far more memorable.
The American Academy of Pediatrics reminds us that play is not a break from learning. It is one of the most powerful ways young children develop attention, self-regulation, language, and executive function.
Learning Through Living
Some lessons simply cannot happen within four classroom walls.
Children remember what they experience. That's why our students regularly learn beyond the classroom.
Through our partnership with the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Miami, students have art lessons inside the museum itself, surrounded by the very works they are studying. Our field experiences have taken children to NASA, the Amazon, museums, exhibitions, and many other places where learning comes alive.
That same philosophy extends to programs like Young Innovators, where children develop real ideas, solve authentic problems, and present their work to real audiences.
The Children's Environmental Congress is another beautiful example. Every year, students present thoughtful ideas for a better future, reminding us that education isn't just about preparing children for tests. It's about helping them discover that their ideas matter and that they can make a difference.
One Journey, One Community
Our two Miami preschools and elementary school are one continuous journey where children grow with confidence, curiosity, kindness, and a lifelong love for learning.
Many of our families have crossed oceans to build a new life in Miami. At Aguamarina, they often tell us they found much more than a school. They found a second home, a place where children are genuinely known, friendships grow naturally, and families support one another.
That sense of belonging extends far beyond Miami. Together with our Aguamarina schools in Colombia and Mexico, we are one international family united by the same belief: children learn best when they feel safe, inspired, challenged, and deeply loved.
If You're Deciding Right Now
If you're choosing a school for your child, I know how emotional that decision can be. Before I was a founder, I was a mother. Like every parent, I wanted a place where my children would be challenged academically without ever losing their joy, confidence, or curiosity.
Over the years, I've learned something important. Academic excellence isn't created by pressure. It's created by purpose: by children who understand what they're learning, by teachers who know every child personally, and by classrooms where questions matter just as much as answers.
And today, that matters more than ever.
Artificial intelligence can memorize information. Technology can retrieve facts in seconds. But creativity, empathy, critical thinking, communication, leadership, resilience, and curiosity remain profoundly human. Those are the qualities our children will need most, and they are precisely the qualities meaningful, hands-on learning develops every day.
This blog is an invitation to keep exploring those ideas together. I hope you'll join me.
And if you'd ever like to experience this philosophy firsthand, we would love to welcome you to Aguamarina. Because behind every ranking, every program, and every educational philosophy are the children themselves. They have always been, and will always be, the real story.
With warmth,
Natalia Montaño
Comments