"A family residing in north London wants to find an exceptional and experienced tutor to guide their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might naturally miss the phrase "initial stages" as just figurative language.
Yet, it might be the crucial part of this distinctive employment listing, as it attempts to find a mentor for a infant.
Hundreds of submissions have already been received since the anonymous family posted their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted interest across the media, with numerous questioning why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their hunt, explained that in spite of early doubt, he found the plan "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he said they understood the unconventional aspect of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
But, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already taken hold".
What precisely did the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", the expert answered. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the firstborn had adopted "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family informed the consultant they hoped to prevent the same situation to happen again with their infant.
The plan: To hire a UK tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the development at the beginning here is somewhat absorbed naturally," stated the expert.
It's via this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will acquire the UK customs they aim to instil.
He said the tutor had to be an individual who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told him the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in riding, winter sports, the arts and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Additionally though, he said the family desired the tutor to enrol 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, assisting their son develop into a "English gentleman" will result in success and create opportunities.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he adds.
However, despite all this tutelage in "English culture", might the child adopt what is termed cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he resides with in any case?
"Yes", answered Adam. "The family realize this could fail, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the private teaching field who have these reservations.
An education leader, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the UK at the age of seven, and had been brought up knowing and living both cultures. He went on to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that one individual can serve as a embodiment of UK identity, an individual who can in some way transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate upon a 12-month-old child, seems to me idealistic and unfeasible," he commented.
"From my perspective, engaging a distinctly English tutor from early childhood will will not automatically produce the result they hope for.
"I did not have such a tutor, and yet I have been privileged enough to enjoy numerous of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, cultural identity cannot be imposed from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, English culture is something Adam thinks can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I think the reality that the global community holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
