"Parents located in North London is looking for an remarkable and qualified instructor to assist their smallest child on his first steps to turning into an British gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might easily miss the wording "first-steps" as mere an expression.
Yet, it could be the crucial aspect of this unusual job advert, as it attempts to find a teacher for a infant.
Numerous of responses have now been submitted since the anonymous family advertised their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the post has received attention across the news, with numerous questioning why?
Innovative Idea
The CEO, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their search, said that despite initial scepticism, he found the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he said they appreciated the atypical character of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
However, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had by then set in".
What precisely did the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", the expert responded. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the elder child had adopted "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family explained to Adam they did not want history to repeat itself with their new baby.
The strategy: To bring in a British tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the development at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," said Adam.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will pick up the British traits they aim to instil.
Adam noted the tutor had to be an individual who attended "the right kinds of schools – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the suitable individual, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to Adam the chosen tutor should preferably also have understanding of or enthusiasm in horse riding, winter sports, the arts and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
More than that though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in success and provide access.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he notes.
However, in spite of all this instruction in "UK identity", would the child pick up what is termed cultural leaning from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", said the CEO. "They realize this could fail, but they've just taken the view of, 'we should try and let's go as early as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the private teaching field who share similar reservations.
Another CEO, chief executive of Blue Education, who provides private tutors, commented that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert wrote that he had relocated from the Far East to the UK at the age of 7 years old, and had been educated understanding and living both cultures. He progressed to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that an individual can serve as a embodiment of English culture, a person who can somehow impart the characteristics of a English gentleman onto a 12-month-old child, strikes me as naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, having a typically British tutor from early childhood will not instantly achieve the result they want.
"I did not have such a tutor, and yet I have been privileged enough to enjoy several of the experiences they desire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, self-identity cannot be forced from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, English culture is something the CEO thinks can be taught – and marketed.
"I believe the reality that the world holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
