"A household based in the northern part of London seeks an exceptional and skilled educator to support their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily skip the term "first-steps" as simple an expression.
But, it could be the most important element of this distinctive employment listing, as it attempts to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Many of responses have since been received since the unidentified family advertised their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has received interest in the press, with many questioning why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their quest, said that notwithstanding initial scepticism, he viewed the concept "visionary", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he said they recognized the unconventional nature of their demand, and how young their son is.
However, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural bias had by then become established".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", he replied. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the elder child had absorbed "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family told Adam they hoped to prevent this pattern to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To engage a English tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the development at the outset here is kind of osmotic," stated Adam.
It's through this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will adopt the British traits they want to instil.
Adam explained the tutor needed to be an individual who went to "the right kinds of schools – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator must be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in horse riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Additionally though, he stated the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son grow into a "UK sophisticate" will result in achievement and provide access.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he notes.
However, despite all this guidance in "UK identity", might the child adopt so-called cultural bias from the globally influenced family he is raised by anyway?
"Absolutely", replied he. "They realize this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'we should try and let's go as early as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he said.
Impractical
Several in the education sector who have those doubts.
An education leader, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who provides individual instructors, commented that "the development of becoming bicultural, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
He noted that he had relocated from Asia to the United Kingdom at the time of 7 years old, and had been brought up knowing and embodying both cultures. He progressed to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that an individual can serve as a embodiment of Britishness, a person who can in some way impart the qualities of a British gentleman to a infant child, strikes me as optimistic and impractical," he stated.
"In my experience, employing a typically British tutor from infancy will will not necessarily produce the goal they desire.
"I never had such a figure, and however I have been fortunate enough to experience several of the situations they hope for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be imposed from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, UK identity is something Adam believes can be taught – and sold.
"I believe the reality that the world regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
