"A family based in the northern part of London wants to find an extraordinary and skilled educator to support their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily skip the term "initial stages" as simple figurative language.
Yet, it might be the most important part of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a mentor for a one-year-old.
Many of submissions have already been received since the anonymous family advertised their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "an exceptional individual".
In recent few weeks, the advert has gained notice across the press, with several wondering why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their hunt, stated that in spite of initial doubt, he found the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he said they recognized the unconventional character of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
However, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural influence had already set in".
What precisely did the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", he responded. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the elder child had adopted "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family informed the consultant they did not want history to recur with their infant.
The strategy: To hire a British tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the education at the start here is rather osmotic," said the expert.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will acquire the British traits they aim to cultivate.
The consultant said the tutor needed to be someone who went to "the right kinds of schools – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed him the selected educator should preferably also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in horse riding, skiing, creative fields and music so as to influence the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Additionally though, he stated the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and provide access.
"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he notes.
But, despite all this instruction in "UK identity", could the child absorb so-called cultural influence from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Absolutely", said the CEO. "The parents realize this may not work, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as soon as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he explained.
Impractical
A number of in the private teaching field who share similar concerns.
Peter Cui, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, wrote that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
Peter wrote that he had moved from the Far East to the Britain at the age of childhood, and had been educated experiencing and embodying dual heritages. He progressed to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that an individual can act as a living vessel of UK identity, someone who can somehow transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate onto a 12-month-old child, appears naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"From my perspective, having a distinctly English tutor from infancy will does not instantly create the goal they desire.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to experience many of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, self-identity can not be forced from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert thinks can be taught – and sold.
"I believe the reality that the international society holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
