He entered school but his school months did not last long. No one can say that he was a stupid pupil but the problem seems to be with him is that he could not get along with the school's discipline and routines. .
His mother, who was a school teacher, could understand his condition and motives so she decided to take him out of school and to educate him by herself. Actually, the major influence on Edison in his early life is attributed to his mother. Soon he became good in writing and reading but he was not good in arithmetic. What attracted him is experimenting and especially chemical experimenting. His fond of chemical experimenting would cause him to set fire more than once. But this fondness of experimenting has shaped and directed the way he would deal with theoretical information; for him nothing is true until it is proven to be true through empirical testing. Edison's first introduction to work was when he began selling what his family grow in their garden. He was eleven years old then. The real job he got is when he was twelve when he worked as a newspaper seller on a train that used to run between Port Huron and Detroit. Edison made use of his new job by exploiting one of the baggage compartments of the train as a laboratory to do his experiments. Unfortunately, the job did not last long because something caused the phosphorus that was in the laboratory to catch fire. The conductor of the train was angry with Edison and hit him on his head and ears. Apparently this caused Edison to lose hearing slightly although that Edison himself says that his deafness was caused by another man who was trying to help him board the train by pulling him from his ear. Few other incidents that happened later increased the deafness. .
Edison's deafness have not hampered him from continuing what he liked best – experimenting. On the contrary, he viewed what happened to him as a useful thing. He declared that this deafness has helped him to concentrate more on his experiments even when there was a loud noise.