"A family based in North London is looking for an extraordinary and qualified educator to assist their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might naturally miss the term "beginning" as simple an expression.
Yet, it may be the most important element of this unique employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of responses have already been received since the unidentified family posted their call for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the post has received attention in the news, with numerous wondering why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their search, said that despite initial doubt, he considered the concept "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he noted they understood the atypical character of their demand, and how young their son is.
But, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural influence had by then become established".
What exactly did the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He stated the elder child had adopted "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family told Adam they hoped to prevent history to repeat itself with their younger child.
The plan: To engage a UK tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby from day one.
Subtle Influence
"Much of the development at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's by means of this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will adopt the English characteristics they want to instil.
He noted the tutor had to be someone who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Money No Object
The family informed Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in riding, skiing, creative fields and music so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Additionally though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son grow into a "English gentleman" will bring about achievement and open doors.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he notes.
But, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "English culture", could the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the multicultural family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", said Adam. "The family know this may not work, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who share these doubts.
Peter Cui, chief executive of an educational organization, who also offer private tutors, commented that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
Peter explained that he had emigrated from Asia to the United Kingdom at the time of seven, and had been educated experiencing and living two backgrounds. He went on to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that one individual can serve as a embodiment of UK identity, an individual who can in some way transfer the characteristics of a British gentleman onto a 12-month-old child, strikes me as naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"From my perspective, engaging a quintessentially English tutor from infancy will not necessarily create the result they want.
"I never had such a figure, and yet I have been fortunate enough to experience numerous of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, personal identity cannot be forced from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, English culture is something the CEO hopes can be taught – and sold.
"I believe the fact that the international society holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
