"A household located in the northern part of London wants to find an exceptional and qualified tutor to assist their youngest child on his initial journey to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might readily overlook the wording "initial stages" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it may be the crucial element of this distinctive employment listing, as it aims to find a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Many of responses have now been sent in since the anonymous family published their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has gained notice in the news, with several asking why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their search, said that despite early skepticism, he found the idea "visionary", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual aspect of their demand, and how young their son is.
However, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had by then become established".
What exactly did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert answered. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He explained the firstborn had adopted "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family informed him they did not want the same situation to recur with their new baby.
The intention: To bring in a British tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the learning at the start here is rather absorbed naturally," stated Adam.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will adopt the British traits they wish to instil.
He explained the tutor must be an individual who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed the expert the successful candidate should ideally also have understanding of or enthusiasm in horse riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
Additionally though, he said the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a range of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son become a "UK sophisticate" will lead to accomplishment and open doors.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he adds.
However, notwithstanding all this guidance in "English culture", might the child pick up what is termed cultural bias from the international family he is raised by in any case?
"Absolutely", answered the CEO. "The parents understand this may not work, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'we should try and we should start as soon as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Impractical
There are some in the education sector who express these doubts.
Another CEO, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, wrote that "the journey of embracing two identities, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert explained that he had moved from the Far East to the Britain at the time of childhood, and had been brought up knowing and practicing two backgrounds. He progressed to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that one individual can act as a representation of Britishness, an individual who can in some way transfer the qualities of a British gentleman onto a one-year-old child, seems to me naive and unrealistic," he wrote.
"In my experience, having a distinctly British tutor from early childhood will will not automatically produce the goal they want.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy several of the situations they hope for their son."
He added: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be dictated from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Of course, UK identity is something Adam believes can be educated – and sold.
"I think the fact that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
