"A family based in the northern part of London is looking for an remarkable and experienced instructor to assist their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this post, you might easily overlook the term "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
However, it may be the most significant element of this unusual job advert, as it seeks to find a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of applications have already been received since the unnamed family posted their search for the highly paid tutor, who must be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the advert has received notice in the news, with several asking why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that despite initial scepticism, he viewed the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they recognized the unusual nature of their demand, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already become established".
What precisely did the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", the expert responded. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the firstborn had absorbed "really subtle, body language" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family explained to the consultant they did not want history to happen again with their new baby.
The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from day one.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the development at the beginning here is kind of acquired indirectly," stated the expert.
It's via this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will pick up the English characteristics they want to impart.
The consultant noted the tutor had to be someone who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told the expert the selected educator should preferably also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, winter sports, the arts and musical activities so as to shape the child in a diverse set of interests.
Furthermore though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in achievement and open doors.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he adds.
But, despite all this tutelage in "UK identity", might the child absorb alleged cultural bias from the international family he lives with regardless?
"Absolutely", said the CEO. "The parents understand this may not work, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the tutoring industry who share these concerns.
Peter Cui, chief executive of an educational organization, who provides personal educators, stated that "the development of becoming bicultural, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
He wrote that he had moved from Asia to the Britain at the period of childhood, and had been educated understanding and practicing both cultures. He went on to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that a single person can function as a embodiment of Britishness, a person who can somehow transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate onto a 12-month-old child, seems to me optimistic and impractical," he stated.
"In my experience, employing a distinctly British tutor from infancy will does not automatically create the result they desire.
"I did not have such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live numerous of the experiences they hope for their son."
He added: "The truth is, personal identity can not be forced from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Of course, English culture is something the expert hopes can be educated – and sold.
"I think the reality that the international society holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
