"Parents based in the northern part of London is looking for an remarkable and experienced tutor to assist their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might naturally overlook the phrase "initial stages" as mere figurative language.
Yet, it may be the crucial aspect of this distinctive employment listing, as it aims to hire a teacher for a one-year-old.
Numerous of applications have already been sent in since the unidentified family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the listing has gained interest throughout the news, with numerous wondering why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their search, explained that despite first doubt, he viewed the idea "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he said they understood the atypical character of their request, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had by then become established".
What exactly does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", Adam replied. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the elder child had picked up "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family explained to the consultant they did not want history to happen again with their younger child.
The plan: To engage a English tutor, who must speak with RP, to guide the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the development at the start here is kind of acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's by means of this subtle influence that the family are hoping the child will pick up the British traits they wish to impart.
He explained the tutor must be someone who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Money No Object
The family explained to Adam the selected educator should preferably also have knowledge of or passion in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, creative fields and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
Furthermore though, he stated the family desired the tutor to register the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in success and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he notes.
But, despite all this guidance in "UK identity", would the child absorb so-called cultural leaning from the multicultural family he is raised by in any case?
"Certainly", said the CEO. "They know this could fail, but they've just taken the view of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as quickly as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the education sector who express similar reservations.
An education leader, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who provides individual instructors, wrote that "the process of becoming bicultural, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
He noted that he had relocated from China to the UK at the age of seven, and had been raised experiencing and embodying dual heritages. He continued to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that a single person can act as a living vessel of English culture, a person who can somehow transplant the attributes of a British gentleman upon a infant child, seems to me naive and unfeasible," he stated.
"Based on my background, engaging a distinctly UK tutor from infancy will will not automatically produce the result they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and however I have been privileged enough to live several of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, personal identity can not be forced from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something Adam thinks can be taught – and marketed.
"In my view the fact that the world regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
