"A household based in North London seeks an remarkable and experienced instructor to support their smallest child on his initial journey to turning into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might easily skip the term "initial stages" as simple an expression.
However, it may be the crucial element of this unusual employment listing, as it attempts to hire a teacher for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of submissions have now been received since the anonymous family advertised their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
During the past few weeks, the advert has gained notice throughout the press, with several questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their quest, said that notwithstanding first scepticism, he viewed the idea "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they recognized the atypical nature of their request, and how early in age their son is.
However, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had by then set in".
What exactly does the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert replied. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the firstborn had picked up "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to the consultant they hoped to prevent the same situation to happen again with their younger child.
The plan: To engage a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the learning at the start here is rather absorbed naturally," said the expert.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are hoping the child will adopt the British traits they wish to instil.
Adam noted the tutor needed to be someone who studied at "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Money No Object
The family informed Adam the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in riding, winter sports, the arts and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a wide range of hobbies.
Additionally though, he said the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a selection 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 perspective, guiding their son develop into a "English gentleman" will result in achievement and provide access.
"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he adds.
However, in spite of all this tutelage in "Britishness", could the child pick up alleged cultural influence from the globally influenced family he lives with anyway?
"Yes", replied the CEO. "They realize this may not work, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he said.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the education sector who share these doubts.
An education leader, chief executive of an educational organization, who provides individual instructors, commented that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
The expert noted that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the age of childhood, and had been brought up experiencing and living both cultures. He progressed to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that a single person can act as a living vessel of English culture, an individual who can possibly transplant the qualities of a English gentleman onto a infant child, seems to me naive and impractical," he commented.
"Based on my background, engaging a quintessentially British tutor from infancy will does not necessarily create the outcome they desire.
"I did not have such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to experience many of the experiences they desire for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, self-identity should not be forced from the outside; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, English culture is something the expert believes can be taught – and commercialized.
"I believe the situation that the international society holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
