"A family residing in north London is looking for an remarkable and qualified educator to support their youngest child on his first steps to turning into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might naturally skip the wording "first-steps" as just figurative language.
Yet, it might be the most significant element of this distinctive employment listing, as it attempts to hire a teacher for a one-year-old.
Numerous of applications have since been sent in since the anonymous family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has received attention in the press, with many wondering why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their hunt, said that despite first skepticism, he found the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical nature of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already taken hold".
What exactly did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "comprehensive", he replied. "The way you eat, the way you speak".
He said the firstborn had adopted "really subtle, body language" 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 intention: To bring in a British tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the beginning here is rather absorbed naturally," explained the expert.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are hoping the child will acquire the UK customs they wish to cultivate.
The consultant said the tutor needed to be someone who studied at "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to Adam the selected educator should preferably also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, skiing, creative fields and musical activities so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Furthermore though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a range of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son grow into a "English gentleman" will result in success and create opportunities.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he comments.
But, despite all this tutelage in "UK identity", could the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he lives with in any case?
"Absolutely", answered Adam. "The parents understand this might not succeed, 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 explained.
Impractical
A number of in the private teaching field who express similar doubts.
Another CEO, head and founder of Blue Education, who supplies personal educators, stated that "the process of embracing two identities, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
He noted that he had emigrated from Asia to the Britain at the age of childhood, and had been brought up knowing and living dual heritages. He went on to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that one individual can function as a living vessel of UK identity, a person who can somehow transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate upon a one-year-old child, appears idealistic and impractical," he stated.
"From my perspective, engaging a distinctly UK tutor from babyhood will does not instantly achieve the goal they desire.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and however I have been privileged enough to experience numerous of the situations they aspire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, personal identity should not be imposed from the outside; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, Britishness is something Adam believes can be educated – and commercialized.
"I think the reality that the world views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
