"A household residing in North London wants to find an remarkable and experienced tutor to assist their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might naturally overlook the wording "first-steps" as mere an expression.
But, it may be the most significant element of this distinctive employment listing, as it attempts to recruit a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Many of applications have now been submitted since the unidentified family posted their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "an exceptional individual".
In recent few weeks, the post has received notice throughout the media, with many wondering why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, chief executive of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their search, said that in spite of initial doubt, he considered the plan "visionary", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he noted they understood the unusual character of their demand, and how immature their son is.
However, they explained 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 bias had already taken hold".
But what did the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert replied. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family told the consultant they hoped to prevent the same situation to happen again with their new baby.
The strategy: To bring in a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is rather acquired indirectly," said the expert.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the UK customs they want to impart.
Adam explained the tutor must be an individual who attended "the right kinds of schools – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in riding, winter sports, the arts and musical activities so as to inspire the child in a wide range of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a variety 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, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will bring about accomplishment and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he comments.
However, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "UK identity", could the child adopt alleged cultural bias from the international family he is raised by anyway?
"Yes", answered Adam. "The family understand this could fail, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who express similar doubts.
Another CEO, head and founder of a tutoring service, who provides individual instructors, commented that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
Peter wrote that he had emigrated from Asia to the Britain at the time of childhood, and had been brought up knowing and practicing dual heritages. He went on to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that a single person can serve as a living vessel of UK identity, a person who can in some way impart the characteristics of a UK sophisticate to a 12-month-old child, seems to me idealistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"In my experience, having a distinctly UK tutor from early childhood will not automatically achieve the result they want.
"I wasn't provided with such a figure, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to enjoy numerous of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, cultural identity can not be forced from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the CEO believes can be taught – and commercialized.
"In my view the reality that the international society views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
