Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany in March 1879 to Pauline and Hermann Einstein. As a small child, his parents believed he had learning difficulties and they consulted a doctor. Einstein didn’t begin speaking until he was 2 years old and thereafter constantly repeated his sentences to himself until age 7. This eccentricity led the family’s maid to give him the derisive nickname “the dopey one,” just an ironic part of Albert Einstein’s tragic childhood.
His formal education began at Petersschule, a Catholic elementary school in Munich, where he did well, although he despised the teaching methods then in use and had issues with some of his teachers, which continued into high school.
“The style of teaching in most subjects was repugnant to him; moreover, his homeroom teacher did not seem very well disposed toward him,” his younger sister Maria Einstein, known as Maja, recalled in a biographical sketch of her brother (via The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein: The early years, 1879-1902). Even so, his grades were exceptional enough to allow him to attend the Luitpold-Gymnasium when he was 9 years old where he began studying calculus at age 12. But three years later he quit school and moved to Italy to avoid Germany’s mandatory military service and to be with his family who had gone there for Hermann’s work.
