"A family located in north London seeks an remarkable and qualified tutor to guide their smallest child on his initial journey to becoming an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily miss the phrase "initial stages" as simple figurative language.
However, it might be the crucial part of this unique employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a mentor for a infant.
Hundreds of applications have since been sent in since the anonymous family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has received interest across the media, with several asking why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their search, stated that in spite of initial skepticism, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical character of their demand, and how young their son is.
However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already become established".
But what did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He stated the firstborn had adopted "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family told him they did not want history to recur with their new baby.
The strategy: To engage a English tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the education at the start here is rather acquired indirectly," said the expert.
It's via this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will acquire the British traits they aim to impart.
Adam said the tutor needed to be somebody who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Money No Object
The family explained to the expert the selected educator should ideally also have understanding of or passion in riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a wide range of hobbies.
More than that though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will bring about achievement and open doors.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he notes.
Yet, in spite of all this instruction in "Britishness", could the child adopt so-called cultural leaning from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Yes", answered he. "They realize this could fail, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as soon as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the private teaching field who share these doubts.
Another CEO, head and founder of a tutoring service, who provides private tutors, stated that "the journey of adopting dual cultures, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
The expert explained that he had relocated from China to the Britain at the period of childhood, and had been educated knowing and embodying both cultures. He went on to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that one individual can act as a representation of UK identity, an individual who can somehow impart the characteristics of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, seems to me naive and unfeasible," he commented.
"In my experience, engaging a distinctly English tutor from babyhood will does not necessarily achieve the goal they desire.
"I did not have such a tutor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to live numerous of the experiences they desire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, self-identity should not be dictated from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, English culture is something the CEO believes can be educated – and marketed.
"In my view the reality that the world views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
