"Parents based in the northern part of London seeks an remarkable and skilled tutor to guide their smallest child on his early path to becoming an British gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might readily miss the wording "beginning" as just a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the crucial element of this unusual position posting, as it seeks to find a teacher for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of responses have already been submitted since the unnamed family posted their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the post has attracted attention across the press, with several questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their search, explained that in spite of first scepticism, he viewed the idea "visionary", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical nature of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
But, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already taken hold".
What precisely did the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", Adam replied. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He explained the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family told Adam they wished to avoid history to recur with their infant.
The intention: To bring in a British tutor, who should speak with RP, to guide the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the education at the beginning here is kind of absorbed naturally," explained the expert.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will acquire the English characteristics they want to cultivate.
Adam noted the tutor must be an individual who went to "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in horse riding, winter sports, creative fields and music so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a range of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, guiding their son grow into a "English gentleman" will result in achievement and open doors.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he notes.
However, in spite of all this guidance in "UK identity", would the child pick up so-called cultural bias from the international family he lives with regardless?
"Yes", said the CEO. "The parents understand this may not work, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the education sector who share those doubts.
Another CEO, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who provides individual instructors, commented that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
Peter explained that he had relocated from China to the Britain at the period of 7 years old, and had been educated knowing and practicing both cultures. He continued to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that an individual can function as a embodiment of UK identity, a person who can possibly transplant the characteristics of a British gentleman to a one-year-old child, strikes me as naive and unrealistic," he wrote.
"In my experience, having a quintessentially British tutor from infancy will not instantly achieve the result they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to enjoy many of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He added: "The truth is, cultural identity should not be imposed from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert hopes can be instructed – and marketed.
"I think the reality that the world regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
