"A family based in north London is looking for an exceptional and skilled educator to assist their smallest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this post, you might easily miss the phrase "beginning" as mere figurative language.
However, it may be the most significant aspect of this unique employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a tutor for a infant.
Many of applications have now been submitted since the anonymous family published their call for the highly paid tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the listing has received interest across the press, with several questioning why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their search, stated that notwithstanding first scepticism, he viewed the concept "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he said they recognized the unusual aspect of their request, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had by then become established".
What exactly did the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", he replied. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He said the firstborn had adopted "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family told the consultant they wished to avoid this pattern to recur with their infant.
The strategy: To hire a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"Much of the learning at the outset here is rather absorbed naturally," explained the CEO.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are hoping the child will pick up the British traits they want to impart.
Adam said the tutor must be an individual who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Money No Object
The family informed Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son develop into a "English gentleman" will bring about achievement and provide access.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he notes.
But, notwithstanding all this instruction in "Britishness", would the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the multicultural family he is raised by in any case?
"Absolutely", said he. "They understand this may not work, but they've just taken the view of, 'we should try and let's go as soon as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the private teaching field who have these reservations.
Another CEO, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, wrote that "the development of embracing two identities, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
He explained that he had moved from China to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been educated understanding and living two backgrounds. He went on to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that an individual can act as a living vessel of UK identity, an individual who can possibly impart the characteristics of a English gentleman to a infant child, appears idealistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, engaging a quintessentially UK tutor from early childhood will not automatically achieve the result they hope for.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to experience many of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, self-identity should not be forced from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, UK identity is something the expert thinks can be instructed – and sold.
"In my view the situation that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
