"A family located in north London is looking for an extraordinary and experienced tutor to support their smallest child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might naturally miss the term "beginning" as simple an expression.
Yet, it may be the crucial aspect of this unique employment listing, as it seeks to find a mentor for a infant.
Numerous of applications have now been submitted since the unnamed family published their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted notice across the press, with several questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, head and founder of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their search, explained that despite early skepticism, he found the plan "visionary", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they appreciated the unusual character of their requirement, and how young their son is.
However, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already become established".
But what did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he responded. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He said the older sibling had absorbed "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family explained to him they did not want this pattern to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the learning at the beginning here is kind of acquired indirectly," said Adam.
It's by means of this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will acquire the English characteristics they want to instil.
Adam said the tutor had to be somebody who went to "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Money No Object
The family told the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in riding, skiing, the arts and musical activities so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Additionally though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son grow into a "British gentleman" will bring about success and provide access.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he notes.
However, despite all this tutelage in "UK identity", could the child adopt so-called cultural leaning from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", answered the CEO. "The family realize this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the education sector who share similar reservations.
Another CEO, chief executive of a tutoring service, who supplies private tutors, stated that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
He wrote that he had moved from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the age of 7 years old, and had been raised experiencing and practicing dual heritages. He went on to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that a single person can function as a representation of Britishness, an individual who can possibly transfer the qualities of a British gentleman to a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"From my perspective, engaging a distinctly UK tutor from early childhood will does not necessarily achieve the goal they hope for.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy several of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be imposed from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert believes can be taught – and sold.
"In my view the reality that the world holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
