"A family located in the northern part of London seeks an extraordinary and experienced tutor to guide their most junior child on his early path to turning into an British gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might readily miss the wording "beginning" as simple figurative language.
Yet, it could be the most significant element of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to find a mentor for a one-year-old.
Many of applications have already been received since the anonymous family advertised their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "an exceptional individual".
In recent few weeks, the post has received interest across the news, with many wondering why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their quest, stated that notwithstanding initial skepticism, he considered the concept "visionary", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he noted they understood the unusual character of their request, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural influence had by then become established".
But what did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he replied. "How you eat, how you speak".
He stated the firstborn had absorbed "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to the consultant they did not want history to recur with their infant.
The plan: To hire a British tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is kind of absorbed naturally," said the CEO.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they aim to cultivate.
The consultant noted the tutor had to be somebody who went to "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Money No Object
The family explained to the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in equestrian activities, winter sports, creative fields and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son develop into a "English gentleman" will lead to success and open doors.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he notes.
But, notwithstanding all this guidance in "UK identity", might the child adopt so-called cultural leaning from the multicultural family he is raised by anyway?
"Certainly", answered Adam. "The parents understand this may not work, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'we should try and we should start as soon as we can', because the price of it is not relevant," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the tutoring industry who express those doubts.
Peter Cui, head and founder of Blue Education, who provides individual instructors, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
He explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the age of childhood, and had been raised experiencing and practicing two backgrounds. He went on to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that an individual can act as a representation of Britishness, an individual who can in some way transfer the characteristics of a English gentleman to a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and impractical," he commented.
"Based on my background, engaging a quintessentially UK tutor from babyhood will will not instantly achieve the goal they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and yet I have been lucky enough to experience numerous of the situations they desire for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, cultural identity can not be imposed from the outside; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something Adam hopes can be taught – and marketed.
"In my view the fact that the global community regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
