"Parents located in North London is looking for an exceptional and skilled educator to support their youngest child on his early path to growing into an British gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might naturally overlook the wording "initial stages" as simple an expression.
However, it may be the most important element of this unusual employment listing, as it attempts to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of applications have now been sent in since the unnamed family posted their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the listing has received attention across the press, with several asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their hunt, explained that in spite of early doubt, he viewed the plan "far sighted", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they understood the unusual character of their demand, and how immature their son is.
However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had by then taken hold".
What precisely did the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert responded. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He said the firstborn had picked up "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family explained to him they hoped to prevent the same situation to recur with their infant.
The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the learning at the beginning here is rather absorbed naturally," explained the CEO.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will acquire the English characteristics they wish to impart.
He noted the tutor needed to be someone who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed Adam the chosen tutor should preferably also have knowledge of or interest in equestrian activities, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a wide range of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he said the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he comments.
But, despite all this guidance in "Britishness", would the child absorb so-called cultural bias from the multicultural family he lives with regardless?
"Yes", said the CEO. "The family understand this could fail, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as soon as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the private teaching field who share similar concerns.
An education leader, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who supplies personal educators, stated that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
He explained that he had moved from China to the Britain at the time of seven, and had been raised understanding and embodying both cultures. He progressed to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that one individual can function as a embodiment of Britishness, an individual who can possibly transplant the attributes of a English gentleman upon a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"From my perspective, having a distinctly English tutor from babyhood will will not instantly produce the outcome they desire.
"I never had such a figure, and yet I have been lucky enough to enjoy many of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He added: "The truth is, cultural identity can not be forced from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, English culture is something the expert thinks can be instructed – and sold.
"I think the situation that the international society holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
