"A family located in North London wants to find an remarkable and experienced instructor to assist their smallest child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might readily miss the phrase "first-steps" as mere figurative language.
However, it could be the most significant aspect of this distinctive job advert, as it aims to hire a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of applications have now been submitted since the unidentified family published their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the post has attracted interest in the news, with numerous questioning why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, head and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their search, explained that notwithstanding early skepticism, he viewed the idea "visionary", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they understood the unusual character of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
However, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already set in".
What exactly did the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam responded. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He said the older sibling had adopted "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family told Adam they wished to avoid this pattern to recur with their infant.
The intention: To engage a British tutor, who must speak with RP, to shape the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the education at the outset here is rather absorbed naturally," explained the expert.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will acquire the UK customs they aim to cultivate.
The consultant explained the tutor needed to be somebody who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Money No Object
The family informed him the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in riding, winter sports, creative fields and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a diverse set of interests.
Furthermore though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son grow into a "English gentleman" will bring about success and open doors.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he notes.
However, despite all this tutelage in "UK identity", could the child adopt what is termed cultural leaning from the international family he resides with in any case?
"Certainly", said he. "The parents understand this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as early as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who express these reservations.
Another CEO, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, wrote that "the process of embracing two identities, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
The expert noted that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the period of childhood, and had been brought up knowing and living two backgrounds. He went on to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that a single person can function as a representation of UK identity, a person who can in some way transfer the attributes of a British gentleman upon a infant child, appears naive and unrealistic," he wrote.
"From my perspective, engaging a quintessentially English tutor from early childhood will does not necessarily achieve the goal they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live many of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, personal identity can not be imposed from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the expert thinks can be taught – and commercialized.
"In my view the fact that the world views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
