"Parents residing in North London wants to find an remarkable and qualified tutor to assist their youngest child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might readily miss the wording "initial stages" as just an expression.
But, it might be the most important aspect of this unique employment listing, as it attempts to hire a tutor for a infant.
Numerous of responses have already been sent in since the anonymous family published their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the post has attracted attention in the press, with several asking why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that notwithstanding first scepticism, he considered the concept "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he noted they appreciated the atypical character of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already set in".
What exactly does the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He stated the older sibling had picked up "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family informed the consultant they wished to avoid this pattern to happen again with their younger child.
The intention: To bring in a English tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the education at the beginning here is somewhat absorbed naturally," said the CEO.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will acquire the English characteristics they wish to instil.
He noted the tutor needed to be somebody who attended "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to Adam the chosen tutor should preferably also have understanding of or enthusiasm in horse riding, winter sports, creative fields and music so as to inspire the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
More than that though, he explained the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will bring about accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Taking into account 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 so-called cultural influence from the international family he resides with anyway?
"Yes", replied he. "The parents know this could fail, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as quickly as we can', because the price of it is not relevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the education sector who share these doubts.
An education leader, chief executive of Blue Education, who provides private tutors, wrote that "the development of embracing two identities, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
The expert explained that he had moved from Asia to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been brought up knowing and embodying dual heritages. He went on to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that one individual can act as a embodiment of Britishness, a person who can possibly transfer the attributes of a English gentleman to a one-year-old child, appears optimistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, having a typically UK tutor from infancy will will not necessarily achieve the goal they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live many of the experiences they hope for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, cultural identity can not be forced from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the CEO hopes can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I think the situation that the world regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
