"A household residing in the northern part of London wants to find an extraordinary and skilled educator to assist their most junior child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily overlook the phrase "first-steps" as mere an expression.
However, it may be the most significant element of this distinctive job advert, as it aims to find a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Many of applications have already been received since the anonymous family posted their search for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted attention in the news, with many asking why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their search, explained that in spite of first skepticism, he viewed the idea "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they understood the unusual nature of their request, and how early in age their son is.
However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already set in".
What exactly did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam responded. "The way you eat, the way you speak".
He said the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family informed him they hoped to prevent history to happen again with their younger child.
The intention: To hire a English tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to influence the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the learning at the beginning here is somewhat osmotic," explained the expert.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will pick up the British traits they aim to impart.
He explained the tutor had to be an individual who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, creative fields and musical activities so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Additionally though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son become a "English gentleman" will bring about achievement and provide access.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he notes.
But, notwithstanding all this guidance in "UK identity", would the child adopt so-called cultural bias from the multicultural family he is raised by in any case?
"Yes", replied he. "The parents understand this may not work, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he said.
Impractical
Several in the tutoring industry who share similar doubts.
Another CEO, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, stated that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
He explained that he had relocated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the time of seven, and had been raised understanding and practicing dual heritages. He went on to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that one individual can serve as a embodiment of UK identity, someone who can in some way transplant the attributes of a British gentleman onto a one-year-old child, appears naive and unrealistic," he wrote.
"In my experience, engaging a typically English tutor from early childhood will will not necessarily achieve the outcome they desire.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy many of the experiences they desire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be forced from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, English culture is something the expert hopes can be educated – and commercialized.
"In my view the situation that the global community holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
