"A family residing in North London is looking for an exceptional and experienced instructor to support their youngest child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might readily overlook the term "beginning" as simple an expression.
However, it may be the most significant aspect of this unique position posting, as it attempts to find a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of applications have already been sent in since the anonymous family published their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the post has received notice across the media, with numerous wondering why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, chief executive of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their quest, said that in spite of initial skepticism, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he said they understood the unconventional nature of their request, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already become established".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he answered. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He explained the older sibling had adopted "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family told him they did not want history to happen again with their younger child.
The strategy: To engage a English tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the beginning here is rather osmotic," said the expert.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will adopt the English characteristics they wish to instil.
He said the tutor must be an individual who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed Adam the selected educator should preferably also have understanding of or interest in horse riding, winter sports, the arts and music so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
Additionally though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son develop into a "British gentleman" will result in success and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he notes.
But, despite all this tutelage in "Britishness", could the child pick up so-called cultural bias from the globally influenced family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", answered the CEO. "The parents understand this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'we should try and we should start as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he explained.
Impractical
There are some in the tutoring industry who have similar concerns.
Another CEO, head and founder of an educational organization, who also offer individual instructors, stated that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert wrote that he had relocated from China to the UK at the time of childhood, and had been brought up experiencing and living both cultures. He progressed to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that one individual can function as a representation of Britishness, someone who can in some way transfer the qualities of a English gentleman to a 12-month-old child, strikes me as idealistic and impractical," he wrote.
"Based on my background, engaging a distinctly English tutor from infancy will not automatically achieve the outcome they want.
"I never had such a tutor, and yet I have been privileged enough to live many of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, cultural identity should not be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, English culture is something Adam believes can be instructed – and sold.
"I believe the fact that the international society holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
