"A household residing in North London wants to find an exceptional and experienced educator to guide their most junior child on his first steps to turning into an English gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might readily miss the term "first-steps" as mere an expression.
Yet, it could be the most important aspect of this unique employment listing, as it attempts to recruit a teacher for a one-year-old.
Numerous of submissions have now been received since the unidentified family posted their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has gained attention in the press, with many wondering why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their hunt, stated that in spite of first scepticism, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he noted they understood the atypical nature of their request, and how immature their son is.
But, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had by then become established".
What precisely did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "comprehensive", he answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the older sibling had picked up "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family told the consultant they did not want the same situation to happen again with their new baby.
The intention: To engage a UK tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the education at the outset here is kind of absorbed naturally," said the expert.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will pick up the English characteristics they wish to impart.
He said the tutor needed to be somebody who studied at "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed him the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in riding, alpine skiing, creative fields and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a wide range of passions.
More than that though, he said the family desired the tutor to register the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son develop into a "British gentleman" will lead to achievement and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he adds.
However, notwithstanding all this instruction in "Britishness", might the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the international family he lives with in any case?
"Absolutely", replied Adam. "They understand this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he said.
Impractical
There are some in the education sector who share similar concerns.
Peter Cui, chief executive of Blue Education, who provides personal educators, stated that "the development of becoming bicultural, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
He noted that he had emigrated from China to the Britain at the time of childhood, and had been brought up experiencing and practicing two backgrounds. He continued to study at Cambridge University.
"The notion that one individual can act as a embodiment of UK identity, a person who can possibly transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman upon a infant child, appears naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"In my experience, employing a quintessentially British tutor from infancy will will not automatically achieve the result they want.
"I never had such a figure, and however I have been fortunate enough to live numerous of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He added: "The reality is, cultural identity should not be imposed from the outside; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Of course, Britishness is something the CEO believes can be taught – and marketed.
"I believe the reality that the international society regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
