"Parents located in the northern part of London wants to find an extraordinary and experienced educator to support their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily skip the phrase "beginning" as simple a turn of phrase.
Yet, it might be the most significant part of this unusual job advert, as it aims to hire a mentor for a one-year-old.
Many of responses have since been sent in since the unnamed family advertised their search for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has received notice throughout the news, with numerous wondering why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their quest, said that despite early skepticism, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they recognized the unusual aspect of their demand, and how immature their son is.
However, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already taken hold".
What exactly did the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam answered. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He explained the firstborn had absorbed "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family told him they wished to avoid the same situation to recur with their infant.
The intention: To bring in a English tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"Much of the education at the outset here is somewhat osmotic," stated the CEO.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will pick up the UK customs they want to cultivate.
He noted the tutor needed to be somebody who attended "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told the expert the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in equestrian activities, winter sports, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a wide range of passions.
More than that though, he stated the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a range of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in success and open doors.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he adds.
However, despite all this guidance in "Britishness", would the child adopt alleged cultural leaning from the multicultural family he resides with in any case?
"Yes", said he. "The family know this may not work, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Impractical
Several in the private teaching field who express those concerns.
Another CEO, head and founder of Blue Education, who provides individual instructors, commented that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
He noted that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the period of childhood, and had been educated experiencing and living both cultures. He continued to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that one individual can act as a representation of UK identity, a person who can somehow transplant the characteristics of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, strikes me as idealistic and impractical," he wrote.
"In my experience, engaging a typically British tutor from babyhood will does not necessarily produce the result they desire.
"I wasn't provided with such a figure, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to enjoy many of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, personal identity should not be imposed from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert believes can be educated – and sold.
"In my view the situation that the global community regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
