"A family residing in north London is looking for an extraordinary and qualified tutor to assist their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might readily miss the term "first-steps" as just an expression.
However, it may be the most important part of this distinctive employment listing, as it aims to find a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have now been received since the anonymous family advertised their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the advert has attracted interest in the press, with many questioning why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, chief executive of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their quest, said that despite first scepticism, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he noted they appreciated the unusual character of their requirement, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already taken hold".
But what did the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", he replied. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had absorbed "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family informed Adam they wished to avoid the same situation to happen again with their infant.
The plan: To hire a British tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the development at the beginning here is kind of osmotic," stated Adam.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will pick up the English characteristics they want to instil.
Adam said the tutor must be somebody who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Money No Object
The family informed the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a diverse set of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in success and open doors.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he notes.
However, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "Britishness", would the child absorb what is termed cultural leaning from the multicultural family he is raised by in any case?
"Absolutely", answered he. "They know this could fail, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'we should try and let's go as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the education sector who have those concerns.
Peter Cui, head and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer personal educators, wrote that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
Peter explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the period of seven, and had been educated experiencing and embodying both cultures. He went on to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The concept that one individual can act as a embodiment of Britishness, someone who can possibly transfer the characteristics of a English gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, strikes me as idealistic and impractical," he stated.
"From my perspective, having a quintessentially English tutor from infancy will not necessarily produce the result they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and yet I have been lucky enough to live many of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, cultural identity can not be forced from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the CEO hopes can be educated – and sold.
"I think the fact that the world holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
