"A family residing in the northern part of London is looking for an extraordinary and skilled instructor to guide their smallest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might easily skip the wording "beginning" as just figurative language.
However, it might be the most significant aspect of this unique position posting, as it attempts to find a teacher for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of responses have now been sent in since the unidentified family posted their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has attracted attention throughout the news, with several asking why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their search, said that notwithstanding first scepticism, he considered the concept "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he said they understood the unusual character of their request, and how immature their son is.
However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural influence had by then set in".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the elder child had picked up "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family informed him they wished to avoid history to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To hire a English tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the learning at the start here is rather absorbed naturally," said Adam.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will adopt the English characteristics they wish to impart.
The consultant noted the tutor must be an individual who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to Adam the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in riding, alpine skiing, the arts and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
Additionally though, he said the family desired the tutor to register the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he notes.
But, in spite of all this instruction in "UK identity", might the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he resides with regardless?
"Absolutely", answered Adam. "The family understand this could fail, but they've just taken the view of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he explained.
Impractical
There are some in the tutoring industry who share those doubts.
Another CEO, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who supplies private tutors, stated that "the process of embracing two identities, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert wrote that he had moved from the Far East to the UK at the age of 7 years old, and had been raised experiencing and practicing dual heritages. He progressed to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that one individual can serve as a representation of English culture, someone who can in some way transplant the attributes of a English gentleman onto a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and unrealistic," he commented.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially English tutor from early childhood will does not instantly achieve the goal they desire.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live numerous of the situations they desire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be imposed from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, English culture is something the expert believes can be educated – and commercialized.
"In my view the situation that the international society views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
