"A household located in North London seeks an extraordinary and qualified educator to assist their most junior child on his first steps to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might readily skip the term "beginning" as just figurative language.
Yet, it could be the most important aspect of this distinctive job advert, as it seeks to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Many of applications have now been submitted since the unnamed family advertised their search for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the listing has gained attention throughout the press, with numerous questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, chief executive of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their search, said that despite initial skepticism, he viewed the idea "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he noted they recognized the atypical aspect of their request, and how immature their son is.
However, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural bias had by then become established".
What precisely did the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", the expert answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the firstborn had picked up "really subtle, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family told the consultant they wished to avoid this pattern to happen again with their infant.
The intention: To engage a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the learning at the beginning here is rather osmotic," said the CEO.
It's via this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will adopt the UK customs they aim to instil.
The consultant noted the tutor must be somebody who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told Adam the chosen tutor should preferably also have understanding of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
More than that though, he stated the family desired the tutor to register the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son become a "UK sophisticate" will bring about success and open doors.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he notes.
Yet, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "UK identity", might the child pick up what is termed cultural bias from the globally influenced family he resides with anyway?
"Yes", said he. "The parents understand this may not work, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as early as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he said.
Impractical
Several in the private teaching field who have those reservations.
An education leader, head and founder of an educational organization, who also offer private tutors, stated that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the UK at the age of childhood, and had been brought up understanding and living two backgrounds. He progressed to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The idea that an individual can act as a representation of Britishness, someone who can possibly transfer the attributes of a UK sophisticate upon a 12-month-old child, appears idealistic and unfeasible," he stated.
"In my experience, employing a typically British tutor from babyhood will does not necessarily create the outcome they want.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and however I have been lucky enough to experience several of the situations they hope for their son."
He added: "The reality is, self-identity can not be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, English culture is something the expert believes can be taught – and sold.
"I believe the reality that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
