"Parents located in the northern part of London is looking for an remarkable and experienced instructor to assist their most junior child on his early path to becoming an English gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might readily miss the phrase "beginning" as mere a turn of phrase.
However, it may be the crucial aspect of this unusual position posting, as it aims to find a tutor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of applications have now been received since the unidentified family advertised their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted attention throughout the news, with numerous asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their search, said that notwithstanding initial skepticism, he viewed the concept "visionary", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he said they appreciated the unusual aspect of their demand, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural influence had already set in".
What exactly did the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", he responded. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He said the older sibling had picked up "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family explained to the consultant they did not want the same situation to repeat itself with their younger child.
The intention: To engage a British tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the development at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," explained the expert.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the UK customs they aim to instil.
He said the tutor must be someone who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed him the successful candidate should ideally also have understanding of or interest in riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
Additionally though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a range of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will bring about achievement and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he comments.
However, despite all this guidance in "English culture", could the child adopt what is termed cultural bias from the international family he resides with anyway?
"Absolutely", replied the CEO. "They realize this might not succeed, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'we should try and we should start as soon as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who share similar concerns.
Another CEO, head and founder of Blue Education, who provides personal educators, stated that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
Peter wrote that he had relocated from the Far East to the Britain at the age of seven, and had been raised experiencing and embodying both cultures. He continued to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that a single person can function as a representation of UK identity, someone who can in some way transfer the attributes of a English gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and impractical," he wrote.
"In my experience, employing a quintessentially British tutor from babyhood will not instantly achieve the result they hope for.
"I never had such a tutor, and yet I have been lucky enough to experience several of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, self-identity can not be forced from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, Britishness is something Adam believes can be taught – and sold.
"I think the fact that the global community regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
