"Parents located in the northern part of London is looking for an exceptional and qualified tutor to assist their youngest child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily overlook the wording "first-steps" as mere figurative language.
Yet, it may be the most important part of this unusual job advert, as it seeks to hire a tutor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of submissions have since been submitted since the anonymous family posted their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has attracted notice throughout the news, with several questioning why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their quest, said that in spite of initial skepticism, he found the plan "visionary", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he noted they appreciated the unusual character of their requirement, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural influence had already taken hold".
What exactly does the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam responded. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the elder child had absorbed "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family explained to the consultant they did not want history to repeat itself with their infant.
The strategy: To bring in a British tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the education at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," explained the CEO.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will pick up the UK customs they wish to instil.
Adam noted the tutor had to be an individual who attended "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to Adam the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in riding, alpine skiing, creative fields and musical activities so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Furthermore though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will bring about achievement and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he adds.
However, notwithstanding all this guidance in "Britishness", might the child absorb what is termed cultural bias from the international family he resides with anyway?
"Yes", said he. "They realize this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the tutoring industry who express similar reservations.
Peter Cui, head and founder of an educational organization, who also offer private tutors, stated that "the process of becoming bicultural, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
Peter wrote that he had emigrated from Asia to the UK at the age of childhood, and had been brought up knowing and living two backgrounds. He continued to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that an individual can serve as a embodiment of UK identity, someone who can somehow transplant the qualities of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, seems to me naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"In my experience, employing a distinctly English tutor from babyhood will will not instantly achieve the result they want.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to live many of the situations they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, personal identity can not be dictated from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, UK identity is something the expert thinks can be instructed – and commercialized.
"In my view the fact that the world regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
