"Parents located in north London wants to find an exceptional and skilled tutor to guide their smallest child on his early path to becoming an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily skip the wording "initial stages" as simple an expression.
However, it could be the most important part of this unusual employment listing, as it attempts to find a tutor for a infant.
Hundreds of responses have already been sent in since the unnamed family advertised their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has received attention in the press, with numerous questioning why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their hunt, said that despite early scepticism, he found the idea "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he noted they understood the unusual nature of their requirement, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural influence had already become established".
But what does the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he responded. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the older sibling had absorbed "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family informed Adam they wished to avoid history to happen again with their new baby.
The strategy: To engage a UK tutor, who must speak with RP, to shape the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the learning at the outset here is somewhat osmotic," explained the CEO.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will acquire the UK customs they aim to instil.
The consultant noted the tutor must be an individual who attended "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Money No Object
The family informed Adam the selected educator should ideally also have understanding of or passion in horse riding, alpine skiing, creative fields and music so as to shape the child in a diverse set of passions.
Additionally though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a range of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son develop into a "British gentleman" will lead to achievement and open doors.
"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he notes.
Yet, despite all this instruction in "Britishness", would the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he resides with in any case?
"Certainly", said the CEO. "The family realize this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as soon as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the tutoring industry who have those concerns.
Peter Cui, chief executive of a tutoring service, who supplies individual instructors, wrote that "the journey of adopting dual cultures, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
Peter wrote that he had moved from Asia to the UK at the time of seven, and had been raised knowing and living both cultures. He progressed to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The concept that one individual can serve as a representation of UK identity, a person who can somehow transfer the characteristics of a UK sophisticate onto a infant child, appears naive and unrealistic," he stated.
"From my perspective, having a distinctly English tutor from babyhood will not necessarily create the outcome they want.
"I never had such a figure, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy many of the experiences they hope for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, self-identity can not be imposed from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the expert believes can be taught – and commercialized.
"I believe the situation that the international society regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
