Just to add a bit of interesting reading!
"Albert was the dude who came up with all that really weird Relativity stuff - and he was your genuine certified Mega Brain. After all, we are told that he even won the Nobel Prize for his work in Relativity. On the other hand, generations of school kids have consoled themselves over their poor school marks with the belief that Einstein failed at school."
"Einstein definitely did not fail at high school. Einstein was born on 14 March in Ulm, in Germany, in 1879. The next year, his family moved to Munich. At the age of 7, he started school in Munich. At the age of 9, he entered the Luitpold-Gymnasium. By the age of 12 he was studying calculus. Now this was very advanced, because the students would normally study calculus when they were 15 years old. He was very good at the sciences. But, because the 19th-century German education system was very harsh and regimented, he didn't really develop his non-mathematical skills (such as history, languages, music and geography)."
"So how did the myth that he failed high school start?
Easy. In 1896, which was Einstein's last year at the school in Aargau, the school's system of marking was reversed.
A grading of "6", which had previously been the lowest mark, was now the highest mark. And so, a grading of "1", which had been the highest mark, was now the lowest mark.
And so, anybody looking up Einstein's grades would see that he had scored lots of grades around "1" - which under the new marking scheme, meant a "fail". And that means that schoolkids can't use that mythconception as a crutch any more - they'll just have to work harder... "
© Karl S. Kruszelnicki Pty Ltd 2004.