"A family based in North London seeks an exceptional and experienced tutor to assist their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might readily miss the wording "initial stages" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it might be the most important aspect of this distinctive job advert, as it attempts to recruit a teacher for a infant.
Hundreds of applications have already been received since the unidentified family advertised their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has received interest across the media, with numerous questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their hunt, said that notwithstanding initial skepticism, he viewed the concept "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical character of their demand, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated 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 by then taken hold".
What precisely does the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", he answered. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He said the firstborn had adopted "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family told him they wished to avoid this pattern to recur with their new baby.
The strategy: To engage a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the development at the start here is somewhat acquired indirectly," explained Adam.
It's by means of this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will acquire the British traits they aim to impart.
He explained the tutor must be somebody who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed the expert the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in horse riding, alpine skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
More than that though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will bring about success and create opportunities.
"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he notes.
However, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "UK identity", could the child adopt alleged cultural leaning from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Absolutely", said the CEO. "The family realize this may not work, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who express these doubts.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who supplies private tutors, stated that "the journey of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
He explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the period of seven, and had been brought up understanding and practicing two backgrounds. He progressed to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that one individual can serve as a representation of English culture, an individual who can somehow impart the qualities of a English gentleman upon a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and unrealistic," he commented.
"Based on my background, employing a quintessentially English tutor from infancy will not necessarily create the result they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and yet I have been fortunate enough to enjoy several of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He added: "The truth is, personal identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, English culture is something the CEO thinks can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I believe the reality that the international society views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
