"A family residing in north London wants to find an exceptional and experienced instructor to support their smallest child on his initial journey to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might naturally skip the wording "initial stages" as simple an expression.
However, it could be the crucial part of this unusual job advert, as it aims to recruit a mentor for a infant.
Numerous of applications have already been received since the anonymous family advertised their search for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has gained interest throughout the press, with many questioning why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their hunt, explained that in spite of early skepticism, he found the idea "visionary", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual nature of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
However, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had by then set in".
But what did the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He stated the older sibling had adopted "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family told the consultant they did not want this pattern to happen again with their new baby.
The plan: To engage a English tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from day one.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the education at the beginning here is rather absorbed naturally," said the CEO.
It's through this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will pick up the English characteristics they want to impart.
Adam said the tutor needed to be somebody who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the right kind of person, 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 Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in horse riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to influence the child in a wide range of interests.
Additionally though, he said the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and provide access.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he comments.
Yet, despite all this tutelage in "English culture", might the child adopt alleged cultural bias from the multicultural family he lives with anyway?
"Absolutely", answered he. "The parents understand this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the price of it is not relevant," he explained.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the private teaching field who have similar reservations.
Another CEO, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who provides individual instructors, wrote that "the development of becoming bicultural, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from Asia to the UK at the period of seven, and had been raised knowing and practicing dual heritages. He continued to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that an individual can serve as a representation of Britishness, an individual who can possibly impart the characteristics of a English gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, strikes me as idealistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"In my experience, employing a distinctly UK tutor from early childhood will will not automatically produce the outcome they hope for.
"I never had such a figure, and yet I have been lucky enough to live several of the situations they desire for their son."
He continued: "The reality is, self-identity cannot be imposed from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, Britishness is something the expert thinks can be instructed – and sold.
"In my view the fact that the global community regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
