"A family located in north London wants to find an exceptional and skilled educator to guide their smallest child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily miss the wording "beginning" as simple an expression.
However, it may be the most important aspect of this unique job advert, as it aims to hire a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of responses have since been submitted since the unidentified family advertised their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the advert has attracted interest in the press, with numerous asking why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their hunt, explained that in spite of first scepticism, he found the idea "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he mentioned they understood the unconventional character of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
However, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural influence had already set in".
What exactly does the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert answered. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the elder child had adopted "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family told Adam they wished to avoid the same situation to happen again with their infant.
The strategy: To engage a English tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the education at the start here is kind of osmotic," said the CEO.
It's by means of this subtle influence that the family are hoping the child will adopt the British traits they wish to cultivate.
Adam noted the tutor must be someone who went to "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they may not realize they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to Adam the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in riding, alpine skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Additionally though, he said the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son become a "English gentleman" will bring about success and provide access.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he notes.
Yet, notwithstanding all this instruction in "English culture", could the child absorb what is termed cultural bias from the international family he is raised by in any case?
"Yes", said the CEO. "They realize this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as soon as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he explained.
Impractical
There are some in the private teaching field who express similar concerns.
Peter Cui, chief executive of Blue Education, who provides personal educators, commented that "the journey of embracing two identities, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert noted that he had moved from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the age of childhood, and had been brought up knowing and embodying both cultures. He continued to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that a single person can act as a embodiment of Britishness, someone who can possibly impart the attributes of a British gentleman onto a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"From my perspective, engaging a distinctly British tutor from babyhood will will not necessarily create the goal they want.
"I never had such a tutor, and however I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the experiences they hope for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, cultural identity should not be imposed from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Of course, English culture is something Adam believes can be taught – and commercialized.
"I think the reality that the world holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
