"A family located in the northern part of London wants to find an remarkable and qualified tutor to guide their youngest child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might readily miss the phrase "beginning" as mere a turn of phrase.
But, it might be the most important aspect of this unique position posting, as it attempts to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of submissions have since been sent in since the anonymous family posted their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has gained attention in the media, with several asking why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their search, explained that despite early doubt, he found the plan "visionary", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they appreciated the unconventional aspect of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural influence had by then taken hold".
What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert answered. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He explained the older sibling had absorbed "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family explained to the consultant they wished to avoid the same situation to happen again with their new baby.
The strategy: To bring in a British tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the education at the outset here is somewhat absorbed naturally," said the CEO.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the British traits they aim to cultivate.
The consultant noted the tutor had to be somebody who studied at "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Money No Object
The family told Adam the selected educator should preferably also have understanding of or interest in equestrian activities, winter sports, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he said the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and create opportunities.
"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he notes.
However, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "UK identity", could the child absorb so-called cultural bias from the multicultural family he resides with regardless?
"Yes", replied he. "They realize this could fail, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'we should try and we should start as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the education sector who have these concerns.
Another CEO, chief executive of Blue Education, who provides personal educators, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
He explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the UK at the age of 7 years old, and had been raised experiencing and living both cultures. He continued to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that one individual can function as a embodiment of English culture, an individual who can in some way impart the characteristics of a UK sophisticate to a infant child, seems to me optimistic and unrealistic," he commented.
"Based on my background, employing a quintessentially British tutor from babyhood will does not automatically create the goal they want.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to enjoy many of the situations they hope for their son."
He added: "The truth is, personal identity should not be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert hopes can be educated – and sold.
"I believe the situation that the international society holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
