"A household residing in north London seeks an remarkable and skilled educator to assist their youngest child on his initial journey to becoming an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily overlook the wording "first-steps" as simple an expression.
Yet, it may be the crucial element of this distinctive job advert, as it aims to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of submissions have now been sent in since the anonymous family posted their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the advert has attracted attention across the press, with several wondering why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that notwithstanding early doubt, he viewed the idea "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he said they understood the unconventional aspect of their requirement, and how young their son is.
However, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had by then taken hold".
What precisely does the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", he answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the firstborn had absorbed "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family informed Adam they hoped to prevent history to repeat itself with their younger child.
The intention: To hire a British tutor, who should speak with RP, to guide the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the learning at the start here is kind of absorbed naturally," explained Adam.
It's via this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will acquire the English characteristics they want to instil.
He noted the tutor needed to be somebody who went to "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told him the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in horse riding, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a diverse set of passions.
Furthermore though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son become a "English gentleman" will bring about success and create opportunities.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he adds.
However, despite all this tutelage in "English culture", could the child pick up what is termed cultural influence from the international family he is raised by in any case?
"Yes", replied Adam. "The family realize this could fail, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'we should try and we should start as quickly as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he explained.
Impractical
Several in the tutoring industry who express similar reservations.
An education leader, head and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer private tutors, commented that "the process of becoming bicultural, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert explained that he had moved from Asia to the United Kingdom at the age of 7 years old, and had been raised understanding and living two backgrounds. He progressed to study at Cambridge University.
"The idea that a single person can act as a representation of UK identity, someone who can possibly transplant the characteristics of a British gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, seems to me idealistic and impractical," he wrote.
"In my experience, employing a distinctly UK tutor from babyhood will will not automatically create the result they want.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy numerous of the experiences they hope for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, cultural identity cannot be imposed from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, UK identity is something the expert hopes can be educated – and sold.
"I believe the reality that the international society holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
