"A family based in the northern part of London wants to find an exceptional and experienced tutor to support their smallest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might readily skip the term "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
However, it could be the crucial part of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to hire a mentor for a infant.
Many of submissions have since been submitted since the anonymous family published their request for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has gained interest throughout the press, with several asking why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their search, stated that notwithstanding first doubt, he considered the concept "visionary", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he said they appreciated the unusual aspect of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they explained that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural influence had by then taken hold".
What exactly does the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam answered. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the elder child had adopted "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent the same situation to happen again with their infant.
The strategy: To hire a UK tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the education at the beginning here is kind of acquired indirectly," explained the CEO.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will pick up the English characteristics they want to instil.
Adam said the tutor needed 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 doing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to Adam the successful candidate should preferably also have knowledge of or passion in horse riding, winter sports, creative fields and musical activities so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son develop into a "English gentleman" will result in accomplishment and open doors.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he comments.
But, in spite of all this instruction in "Britishness", would the child absorb so-called cultural influence from the multicultural family he lives with in any case?
"Certainly", replied Adam. "The parents know this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as soon as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the private teaching field who share similar reservations.
Another CEO, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, commented that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
Peter noted that he had emigrated from Asia to the UK at the period of 7 years old, and had been brought up experiencing and living both cultures. He continued to study at Cambridge University.
"The concept that an individual can act as a living vessel of English culture, someone who can possibly transplant the qualities of a UK sophisticate upon a 12-month-old child, strikes me as naive and unrealistic," he stated.
"Based on my background, having a typically British tutor from infancy will does not necessarily create the result they hope for.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to experience numerous of the situations they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, self-identity should not be dictated from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, English culture is something the expert hopes can be educated – and marketed.
"In my view the situation that the international society views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
