"Parents based in North London seeks an exceptional and experienced instructor to support their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily miss the phrase "first-steps" as just a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the crucial aspect of this distinctive employment listing, as it aims to recruit a teacher for a infant.
Numerous of applications have since been submitted since the unnamed family advertised their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has attracted attention in the news, with numerous questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their quest, said that notwithstanding first scepticism, he viewed the concept "far sighted", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they recognized the unusual nature of their request, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already taken hold".
But what does the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam replied. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He said the older sibling had picked up "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family told Adam they hoped to prevent the same situation to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"Much of the education at the start here is rather osmotic," stated the expert.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the UK customs they want to instil.
He said the tutor must be an individual who attended "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they may not realize they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Money No Object
The family explained to the expert the successful candidate should preferably also have understanding of or enthusiasm in riding, winter sports, the arts and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a range of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son develop into a "English gentleman" will result in accomplishment and provide access.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he comments.
However, in spite of all this tutelage in "Britishness", would the child absorb alleged cultural bias from the international family he lives with regardless?
"Yes", said the CEO. "The family realize this could fail, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as early as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who express these doubts.
Peter Cui, head and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer individual instructors, commented that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
Peter explained that he had relocated from China to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been brought up understanding and embodying both cultures. He went on to learn at Cambridge University.
"The concept that one individual can serve as a representation of UK identity, a person who can possibly transfer the attributes of a UK sophisticate upon a infant child, seems to me idealistic and impractical," he wrote.
"From my perspective, engaging a quintessentially English tutor from babyhood will will not instantly create the result they hope for.
"I did not have such a tutor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to live many of the experiences they hope for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, personal identity should not be forced from the outside; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the CEO hopes can be taught – and sold.
"In my view the situation that the international society holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
