"A family based in the northern part of London wants to find an extraordinary and experienced educator to support their youngest child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might naturally skip the wording "first-steps" as just a turn of phrase.
Yet, it may be the crucial aspect of this unusual employment listing, as it attempts to hire a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Many of submissions have already been sent in since the anonymous family advertised their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has gained attention throughout the news, with numerous asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their hunt, said that despite first doubt, he viewed the idea "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he mentioned they understood the atypical character of their request, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural influence had already become established".
What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He said the firstborn had picked up "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family explained to him they hoped to prevent this pattern to happen again with their new baby.
The strategy: To hire a British tutor, who must speak with RP, to guide the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the education at the beginning here is kind of absorbed naturally," explained the CEO.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will pick up the UK customs they wish to cultivate.
Adam said the tutor had to be someone who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Money No Object
The family told him the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in equestrian activities, skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a diverse set of passions.
Furthermore though, he explained the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son develop into a "British gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and open doors.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he adds.
But, despite all this guidance in "English culture", would the child adopt alleged cultural leaning from the international family he resides with in any case?
"Absolutely", answered Adam. "They realize this might not succeed, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as soon as we can', because the price of it is not relevant," he explained.
Impractical
A number of in the private teaching field who share those concerns.
Another CEO, chief executive of Blue Education, who supplies private tutors, commented that "the development of becoming bicultural, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
Peter noted that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the time of seven, and had been raised experiencing and living two backgrounds. He continued to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The notion that an individual can function as a living vessel of UK identity, someone who can somehow impart the qualities of a British gentleman upon a one-year-old child, seems to me naive and impractical," he wrote.
"In my experience, engaging a typically British tutor from early childhood will not necessarily achieve the outcome they want.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to enjoy numerous of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, personal identity cannot be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, Britishness is something Adam thinks can be instructed – and sold.
"In my view the reality that the global community views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
