Science tells an optimistic story about children’s potential: it says that what one child can do, nearly all can do, under highly favorable conditions. In this presentation, Pamela Cantor, M.D. will use developmental and learning science to answer the questions: What would any child be capable of under the right conditions? How can we design schools, classrooms, practices, and measurements to optimize whole-child development and thriving? We will discuss the biological, psychological, behavioral and epigenetic systems that govern human life, and how this knowledge can provide a roadmap for the design of a 21st century education system mapped to how children grow and how the brain learns.