"A family residing in the northern part of London is looking for an exceptional and skilled tutor to assist their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might naturally miss the phrase "first-steps" as mere a turn of phrase.
Yet, it might be the most important aspect of this unusual position posting, as it seeks to hire a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Many of applications have now been submitted since the unnamed family advertised their search for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has received attention across the press, with numerous questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, head and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their quest, stated that notwithstanding initial skepticism, he viewed the plan "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he said they recognized the unconventional character of their requirement, and how young their son is.
However, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already become established".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", he responded. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He stated the elder child had adopted "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family told him they wished to avoid this pattern to recur with their new baby.
The strategy: To bring in a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the learning at the beginning here is somewhat acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's by means of this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will adopt the UK customs they want to instil.
Adam explained the tutor needed to be somebody who studied at "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to him the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in equestrian activities, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to influence the child in a wide range of passions.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son become a "British gentleman" will result in accomplishment and create opportunities.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he notes.
Yet, despite all this guidance in "Britishness", could the child absorb what is termed cultural bias from the multicultural family he resides with anyway?
"Certainly", said he. "The family understand this may not work, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who share those concerns.
Peter Cui, chief executive of an educational organization, who provides personal educators, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
He noted that he had emigrated from China to the Britain at the period of childhood, and had been raised knowing and embodying dual heritages. He continued to study at Cambridge University.
"The idea that one individual can serve as a representation of UK identity, a person who can possibly transfer the characteristics of a UK sophisticate to a 12-month-old child, strikes me as idealistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"From my perspective, employing a typically British tutor from early childhood will will not instantly create the outcome they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and however I have been lucky enough to live many of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, personal identity should not be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, English culture is something the CEO hopes can be educated – and marketed.
"I think the situation that the world regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
