"Parents residing in north London seeks an extraordinary and skilled tutor to support their youngest child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might readily miss the wording "initial stages" as simple figurative language.
However, it could be the most important aspect of this distinctive position posting, as it aims to recruit a mentor for a infant.
Hundreds of applications have now been received since the anonymous family advertised their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the listing has attracted interest across the news, with many asking why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their search, stated that in spite of early skepticism, he viewed the concept "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they understood the unconventional character of their request, and how immature their son is.
However, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had by then taken hold".
What exactly did the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", the expert answered. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the older sibling had adopted "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to him they did not want the same situation to happen again with their younger child.
The strategy: To bring in a UK tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the education at the beginning here is somewhat acquired indirectly," stated the expert.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the British traits they want to cultivate.
The consultant explained the tutor needed to be someone who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in equestrian activities, skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a diverse set of passions.
Additionally though, he explained the family desired the tutor to register the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will lead to accomplishment and open doors.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he notes.
Yet, in spite of all this instruction in "UK identity", could the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he lives with regardless?
"Yes", said he. "They know this may not work, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'we should try and let's go as early as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the private teaching field who have similar reservations.
Another CEO, chief executive of a tutoring service, who provides private tutors, commented that "the development of embracing two identities, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
He noted that he had emigrated from the Far East to the UK at the age of childhood, and had been educated knowing and practicing both cultures. He progressed to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The idea that one individual can function as a living vessel of UK identity, an individual who can somehow impart the characteristics of a English gentleman to a 12-month-old child, appears naive and unrealistic," he wrote.
"In my experience, employing a quintessentially English tutor from babyhood will does not necessarily create the goal they hope for.
"I did not have such a tutor, and however I have been fortunate enough to live numerous of the situations they hope for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, self-identity should not be dictated from the outside; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, English culture is something the CEO hopes can be taught – and marketed.
"In my view the situation that the world holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
