"A family located in the northern part of London is looking for an exceptional and qualified educator to assist their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this post, you might readily skip the phrase "initial stages" as mere figurative language.
However, it might be the most significant aspect of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to find a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of submissions have already been sent in since the unidentified family published their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the advert has attracted interest in the media, with many wondering why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their quest, stated that notwithstanding first skepticism, he found the plan "visionary", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual character of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
However, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural influence had already set in".
But what did the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam responded. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He said the firstborn had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family told Adam they did not want this pattern to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To bring in a English tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the learning at the start here is kind of acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will pick up the UK customs they wish to cultivate.
The consultant explained the tutor had to be someone who attended "the right kinds of schools – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Additionally though, he said the family wanted 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 around three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son develop into a "English gentleman" will result in achievement and provide access.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he comments.
Yet, despite all this tutelage in "Britishness", might the child pick up so-called cultural bias from the international family he is raised by regardless?
"Yes", answered the CEO. "The parents know this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the education sector who express these doubts.
An education leader, head and founder of a tutoring service, who supplies private tutors, stated that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the age of 7 years old, and had been brought up experiencing and embodying both cultures. He went on to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that a single person can act as a representation of English culture, an individual who can possibly transplant the characteristics of a British gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and unrealistic," he commented.
"From my perspective, engaging a typically UK tutor from early childhood will does not necessarily create the goal they desire.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and yet I have been privileged enough to experience numerous of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, cultural identity should not be forced from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, UK identity is something the expert believes can be instructed – and marketed.
"I think the situation that the world holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
