"A family located in north London is looking for an exceptional and experienced tutor to support their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might naturally miss the phrase "first-steps" as mere figurative language.
However, it may be the crucial aspect of this unique job advert, as it aims to hire a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of submissions have already been submitted since the anonymous family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the listing has gained notice across the news, with numerous wondering why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that notwithstanding first scepticism, he viewed the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he mentioned they appreciated the unconventional aspect of their request, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already taken hold".
But what does the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", he replied. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He stated the elder child had picked up "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family told the consultant they wished to avoid history to happen again with their new baby.
The intention: To engage a UK tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the education at the start here is somewhat osmotic," said the CEO.
It's through this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will adopt the UK customs they want to impart.
The consultant said the tutor had to be someone who went to "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Money No Object
The family told him the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he stated the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will bring about accomplishment and provide access.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he notes.
But, despite all this instruction in "English culture", could the child pick up what is termed cultural bias from the globally influenced family he resides with in any case?
"Yes", said he. "The family understand this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'we should try and we should start as soon as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the private teaching field who have those reservations.
Peter Cui, chief executive of an educational organization, who provides individual instructors, stated that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
He wrote that he had emigrated from Asia to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been educated understanding and living dual heritages. He went on to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that a single person can act as a embodiment of UK identity, someone who can possibly transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate to a infant child, strikes me as naive and impractical," he wrote.
"Based on my background, employing a typically British tutor from infancy will will not automatically produce the outcome they hope for.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to live several of the experiences they desire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, cultural identity can not be forced from the outside; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, UK identity is something Adam believes can be taught – and sold.
"I believe the fact that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
