"A household based in the northern part of London wants to find an exceptional and qualified instructor to assist their smallest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might readily skip the phrase "initial stages" as mere an expression.
However, it could be the most significant aspect of this unusual employment listing, as it attempts to recruit a tutor for a infant.
Many of responses have since been submitted since the unnamed family advertised their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has attracted notice throughout the press, with many asking why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their quest, said that despite initial scepticism, he viewed the concept "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they understood the atypical character of their requirement, and how young their son is.
However, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already set in".
But what does the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam responded. "How you eat, how you speak".
He said the older sibling had adopted "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family explained to Adam they did not want the same situation to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To hire a English tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the start here is kind of osmotic," stated Adam.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will pick up the British traits they want to instil.
The consultant explained the tutor had to be somebody who studied at "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told the expert the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in horse riding, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to inspire the child in a wide range of passions.
Furthermore though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a range of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in success and provide access.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he adds.
However, in spite of all this guidance in "English culture", could the child pick up so-called cultural influence from the multicultural family he resides with anyway?
"Certainly", answered Adam. "The family realize this may not work, but they've just taken the view of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Impractical
A number of in the education sector who express these reservations.
An education leader, chief executive of a tutoring service, who provides personal educators, commented that "the process of becoming bicultural, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
Peter wrote that he had relocated from Asia to the UK at the age of childhood, and had been raised knowing and practicing both cultures. He progressed to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that an individual can function as a living vessel of Britishness, a person who can somehow transfer the qualities of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, strikes me as idealistic and unrealistic," he stated.
"From my perspective, employing a distinctly English tutor from babyhood will does not automatically create the outcome they want.
"I did not have such a tutor, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy numerous of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He added: "The truth is, self-identity cannot be imposed from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Of course, English culture is something the expert thinks can be educated – and sold.
"In my view the reality that the international society holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
