"Parents based in the northern part of London wants to find an exceptional and experienced educator to assist their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily miss the phrase "first-steps" as simple an expression.
However, it might be the most important element of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to find a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of responses have now been submitted since the anonymous family posted their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has gained interest in the news, with several asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their hunt, explained that in spite of early skepticism, he found the concept "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he said they appreciated the unconventional aspect of their demand, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had by then become established".
What exactly did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam replied. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He explained the older sibling had absorbed "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they did not want this pattern to happen again with their infant.
The strategy: To bring in a British tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the education at the start here is rather absorbed naturally," stated the expert.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will adopt the UK customs they aim to instil.
The consultant noted the tutor must be an individual who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Additionally though, he stated the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "equestrian training and picking up an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in success and provide access.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he comments.
Yet, despite all this instruction in "UK identity", would the child adopt alleged cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he is raised by regardless?
"Yes", answered he. "The family understand this could fail, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as soon as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the tutoring industry who have those reservations.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who supplies personal educators, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
Peter noted that he had relocated from China to the United Kingdom at the period of 7 years old, and had been educated knowing and living dual heritages. He continued to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that a single person can act as a embodiment of English culture, an individual who can in some way transplant the characteristics of a UK sophisticate upon a 12-month-old child, strikes me as idealistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, employing a typically British tutor from infancy will not automatically achieve the goal they want.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to experience several of the situations they hope for their son."
He continued: "The reality is, self-identity should not be forced from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, English culture is something the CEO thinks can be instructed – and sold.
"I think the fact that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
