"Parents residing in the northern part of London wants to find an exceptional and skilled instructor to support their youngest child on his first steps to turning into an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might readily overlook the phrase "initial stages" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it might be the crucial part of this distinctive employment listing, as it seeks to hire a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have now been submitted since the unidentified family advertised their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the post has gained notice in the media, with many questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their quest, explained that despite early doubt, he viewed the plan "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he mentioned they understood the unconventional character of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already taken hold".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", the expert replied. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He said the firstborn had adopted "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family informed the consultant they wished to avoid the same situation to recur with their infant.
The strategy: To hire a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is somewhat osmotic," stated Adam.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will acquire the British traits they aim to cultivate.
The consultant said the tutor had to be somebody who went to "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to Adam the selected educator should ideally also have understanding of or enthusiasm in riding, skiing, creative fields and music so as to shape the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son develop into a "English gentleman" will bring about achievement and provide access.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he adds.
However, in spite of all this instruction in "Britishness", might the child absorb so-called cultural bias from the multicultural family he lives with anyway?
"Yes", said he. "The family understand this could fail, 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 price of it is irrelevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the education sector who share those doubts.
Peter Cui, chief executive of a tutoring service, who supplies private tutors, commented that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
The expert noted that he had relocated from China to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been brought up knowing and living both cultures. He continued to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that an individual can serve as a representation of Britishness, an individual who can possibly transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, appears optimistic and impractical," he commented.
"Based on my background, having a distinctly UK tutor from early childhood will does not automatically create the outcome they hope for.
"I did not have such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live numerous of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, personal identity cannot be dictated from the outside; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, English culture is something the CEO believes can be educated – and marketed.
"I think the reality that the world holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
