"A family located in the northern part of London seeks an exceptional and skilled tutor to assist their smallest child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might naturally skip the term "first-steps" as just figurative language.
However, it might be the most important aspect of this unique position posting, as it seeks to hire a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Many of applications have since been received since the unidentified family posted their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the listing has attracted interest throughout the media, with many wondering why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their hunt, said that notwithstanding initial doubt, he found the idea "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he noted they understood the unconventional character of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
But, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural influence had by then set in".
What exactly did the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", the expert replied. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the elder child had adopted "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family informed the consultant they hoped to prevent this pattern to recur with their younger child.
The intention: To engage a UK tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to influence the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the learning at the outset here is somewhat acquired indirectly," stated Adam.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will pick up the British traits they want to instil.
Adam explained the tutor needed to be someone who went to "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Money No Object
The family told him the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in horse riding, winter sports, the arts and music so as to inspire the child in a wide range of interests.
More than that though, he stated the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a range of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son grow into a "British gentleman" will bring about success and open doors.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he notes.
But, in spite of all this instruction in "English culture", might the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the multicultural family he lives with regardless?
"Absolutely", answered Adam. "The parents realize this may not work, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the tutoring industry who have these doubts.
An education leader, chief executive of an educational organization, who provides private tutors, stated that "the process of embracing two identities, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
The expert noted that he had emigrated from Asia to the United Kingdom at the period of childhood, and had been educated experiencing and embodying two backgrounds. He progressed to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The notion that a single person can serve as a living vessel of English culture, an individual who can somehow transfer the attributes of a UK sophisticate onto a 12-month-old child, strikes me as naive and unfeasible," he commented.
"From my perspective, engaging a distinctly UK tutor from infancy will not instantly produce the outcome they desire.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and yet I have been lucky enough to live numerous of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He added: "The truth is, cultural identity can not be dictated from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, Britishness is something the CEO thinks can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I believe the fact that the international society holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
