"A family residing in North London wants to find an extraordinary and qualified instructor to support their smallest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might easily overlook the wording "initial stages" as just figurative language.
However, it could be the most important part of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to find a tutor for a infant.
Many of applications have now been sent in since the unidentified family advertised their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the post has gained notice across the news, with numerous asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their search, said that despite first skepticism, he viewed the concept "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he said they appreciated the atypical aspect of their request, and how early in age their son is.
But, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already taken hold".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "comprehensive", he answered. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He stated the older sibling had absorbed "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent history to happen again with their new baby.
The strategy: To hire a English tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to influence the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the education at the start here is somewhat osmotic," explained Adam.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will acquire the British traits they aim to instil.
The consultant said the tutor had to be someone who attended "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed him the successful candidate should preferably also have familiarity of or passion in horse riding, skiing, the arts and musical activities so as to influence the child in a wide range of passions.
Additionally though, he explained the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will lead to accomplishment and create opportunities.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he adds.
Yet, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "UK identity", would the child pick up so-called cultural influence from the globally influenced family he resides with anyway?
"Yes", answered he. "The parents understand this could fail, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'we should try and let's go as early as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who have those doubts.
An education leader, head and founder of Blue Education, who provides private tutors, wrote that "the process of embracing two identities, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
He wrote that he had emigrated from China to the UK at the time of seven, and had been brought up experiencing and embodying two backgrounds. He went on to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that an individual can act as a living vessel of UK identity, a person who can possibly transfer the qualities of a British gentleman upon a infant child, appears naive and impractical," he stated.
"Based on my background, engaging a distinctly UK tutor from infancy will does not necessarily create the result they hope for.
"I never had such a figure, and however I have been fortunate enough to experience many of the situations they desire for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, cultural identity cannot be dictated from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, English culture is something the expert believes can be taught – and marketed.
"I believe the fact that the international society views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
