"A household based in North London wants to find an remarkable and skilled tutor to support their most junior child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might easily overlook the phrase "beginning" as simple an expression.
But, it may be the most important part of this unique job advert, as it seeks to recruit a teacher for a one-year-old.
Numerous of applications have now been received since the anonymous family posted their search for the highly paid tutor, who must be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the listing has attracted interest across the media, with several wondering why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their search, said that despite early doubt, he found the concept "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he said they understood the unconventional character of their demand, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural influence had by then set in".
What exactly does the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", the expert answered. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the older sibling had absorbed "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family told Adam they did not want the same situation to happen again with their younger child.
The plan: To bring in a UK tutor, who must speak with RP, to guide the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the learning at the start here is kind of absorbed naturally," stated Adam.
It's through this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they wish to instil.
Adam explained the tutor needed to be someone who attended "the right kinds of schools – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to him the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in riding, skiing, the arts and music so as to inspire the child in a wide range of passions.
Additionally though, he stated the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son develop into a "English gentleman" will bring about success and create opportunities.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he comments.
But, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "English culture", could the child absorb what is termed cultural influence from the globally influenced family he is raised by in any case?
"Yes", replied he. "They realize this may not work, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Impractical
There are some in the education sector who have those concerns.
An education leader, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the development of embracing two identities, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
The expert noted that he had moved from China to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been brought up knowing and living both cultures. He progressed to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that an individual can function as a representation of Britishness, someone who can possibly impart the attributes of a English gentleman upon a infant child, seems to me optimistic and unrealistic," he commented.
"From my perspective, engaging a quintessentially UK tutor from early childhood will does not automatically create the goal they desire.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and yet I have been lucky enough to experience several of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, cultural identity cannot be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the CEO hopes can be educated – and marketed.
"I believe the situation that the international society holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
