"Parents based in north London is looking for an exceptional and experienced instructor to assist their smallest child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might readily overlook the term "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
However, it may be the most important element of this unique position posting, as it seeks to recruit a mentor for a infant.
Hundreds of responses have since been sent in since the unnamed family advertised their search for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "an exceptional individual".
In recent few weeks, the post has received notice in the media, with numerous questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, chief executive of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their search, stated that despite initial scepticism, he considered the idea "visionary", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they appreciated the atypical character of their request, and how immature their son is.
However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural bias had by then set in".
But what does the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam responded. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He explained the firstborn had absorbed "really subtle, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they wished to avoid this pattern to happen again with their infant.
The strategy: To bring in a British tutor, who must speak with RP, to guide the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the education at the beginning here is somewhat absorbed naturally," stated the CEO.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they aim to instil.
He explained the tutor needed to be someone who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Money No Object
The family told him the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in equestrian activities, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to influence the child in a wide range of passions.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "British gentleman" will lead to achievement and create opportunities.
"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he notes.
However, despite all this guidance in "English culture", would the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the international family he resides with anyway?
"Absolutely", answered he. "The family realize this could fail, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Impractical
Several in the tutoring industry who express these doubts.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who supplies personal educators, stated that "the process of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert wrote that he had relocated from China to the United Kingdom at the age of childhood, and had been raised experiencing and embodying both cultures. He continued to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that a single person can act as a living vessel of UK identity, someone who can possibly transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman onto a infant child, strikes me as optimistic and unfeasible," he commented.
"Based on my background, employing a quintessentially English tutor from infancy will does not instantly create the result they hope for.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and however I have been privileged enough to live several of the situations they aspire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, self-identity cannot be forced from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, UK identity is something Adam hopes can be instructed – and commercialized.
"In my view the fact that the international society views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
