"A family located in North London wants to find an extraordinary and experienced educator to guide their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might easily miss the wording "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
However, it might be the most significant element of this distinctive employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a teacher for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of submissions have since been submitted since the anonymous family published their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted interest throughout the news, with many asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their hunt, explained that notwithstanding initial doubt, he considered the plan "far sighted", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he noted they appreciated the unconventional aspect of their request, and how immature their son is.
But, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already set in".
But what does the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", he responded. "The manner you eat, the manner 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 informed Adam they did not want history to recur with their younger child.
The strategy: To engage a English tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the start here is somewhat acquired indirectly," stated the CEO.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will pick up the English characteristics they want to impart.
He explained the tutor had to be somebody who went to "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Money No Object
The family informed Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in equestrian activities, skiing, the arts and musical activities so as to inspire the child in a wide range of interests.
Furthermore though, he stated the family desired the tutor to register the child on a range of classes so the child would be "pony-riding 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 result in achievement and open doors.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he notes.
Yet, notwithstanding all this guidance in "English culture", would the child absorb so-called cultural bias from the globally influenced family he lives with regardless?
"Certainly", replied the CEO. "They know this could fail, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the private teaching field who express those reservations.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer personal educators, wrote that "the journey of embracing two identities, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
The expert wrote that he had emigrated from China to the Britain at the period of 7 years old, and had been raised understanding and living dual heritages. He progressed to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that one individual can serve as a representation of English culture, someone who can in some way transfer the attributes of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and impractical," he stated.
"From my perspective, engaging a quintessentially British tutor from infancy will not necessarily create the goal they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and yet I have been privileged enough to experience several of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, personal identity cannot be dictated from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the CEO thinks can be instructed – and marketed.
"I believe the reality that the international society regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
