"A family based in North London seeks an exceptional and skilled tutor to assist their most junior child on his first steps to turning into an English gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might easily skip the term "initial stages" as mere an expression.
Yet, it might be the crucial element of this unique job advert, as it attempts to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of responses have since been received since the unidentified family advertised their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
During the past few weeks, the post has gained notice in the press, with many questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their quest, explained that despite first scepticism, he considered the concept "visionary", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he mentioned they understood the atypical character of their request, and how immature their son is.
But, they clarified 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 influence had already become established".
What exactly does the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", he answered. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the older sibling had absorbed "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family explained to him they wished to avoid this pattern to happen again with their new baby.
The strategy: To engage a British tutor, who must speak with RP, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the development at the start here is kind of absorbed naturally," said the expert.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will adopt the UK customs they want to impart.
He said the tutor needed to be someone who studied at "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Money No Object
The family informed Adam the selected educator should preferably also have knowledge of or passion in horse riding, alpine skiing, creative fields and music so as to shape the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son grow into a "English gentleman" will result in achievement and provide access.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he adds.
Yet, despite all this tutelage in "UK identity", could the child adopt what is termed cultural leaning from the multicultural family he lives with regardless?
"Certainly", answered the CEO. "The family know this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'we should try and we should start as soon as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the private teaching field who share these reservations.
Peter Cui, head and founder of an educational organization, who also offer private tutors, commented that "the development of embracing two identities, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
Peter noted that he had relocated from China to the Britain at the time of seven, and had been educated knowing and living two backgrounds. He continued to study at Cambridge University.
"The concept that a single person can serve as a representation of Britishness, a person who can in some way transfer the qualities of a British gentleman onto a 12-month-old child, appears optimistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"Based on my background, engaging a distinctly British tutor from infancy will does not necessarily create the goal they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and yet I have been fortunate enough to enjoy several of the situations they hope for their son."
He added: "The reality is, cultural identity cannot be imposed from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, UK identity is something the expert believes can be instructed – and marketed.
"In my view the fact that the world holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
