"A family located in the northern part of London wants to find an exceptional and experienced educator to assist their youngest child on his early path to turning into an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily overlook the phrase "beginning" as just an expression.
Yet, it may be the most important part of this unusual position posting, as it seeks to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of submissions have now been sent in since the unnamed family advertised their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the post has received notice throughout the press, with many questioning why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their search, explained that in spite of initial skepticism, he viewed the concept "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical nature of their demand, and how young their son is.
However, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural bias had already set in".
What precisely does the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", he answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He stated the firstborn had picked up "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent the same situation to recur with their infant.
The strategy: To engage a British tutor, who must speak with RP, to guide the baby from day one.
Subtle Influence
"Much of the development at the outset here is somewhat osmotic," explained Adam.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are hoping the child will pick up the UK customs they aim to impart.
Adam noted the tutor had to be an individual who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Money No Object
The family informed the expert the selected educator should preferably also have familiarity of or interest in horse riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he stated the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "UK sophisticate" will bring about achievement and create opportunities.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he notes.
But, notwithstanding all this guidance in "English culture", would the child pick up alleged cultural bias from the multicultural family he is raised by anyway?
"Yes", answered Adam. "The parents understand this could fail, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the private teaching field who share these reservations.
An education leader, head and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer individual instructors, stated that "the development of embracing two identities, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
He wrote that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the age of seven, and had been educated knowing and practicing two backgrounds. He progressed to study at Cambridge University.
"The notion that a single person can serve as a representation of Britishness, a person who can somehow transfer the attributes of a English gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"From my perspective, employing a typically British tutor from early childhood will will not instantly create the result they want.
"I did not have such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, cultural identity cannot be imposed from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, UK identity is something the CEO hopes can be instructed – and marketed.
"I think the situation that the global community holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
