"Parents residing in North London wants to find an exceptional and qualified tutor to assist their youngest child on his initial journey to turning into an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily skip the term "beginning" as mere figurative language.
Yet, it may be the crucial aspect of this distinctive position posting, as it seeks to hire a tutor for a one-year-old.
Many of applications have now been sent in since the anonymous family posted their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the post has attracted attention throughout the media, with numerous questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their search, said that despite initial skepticism, he considered the plan "far sighted", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he mentioned they recognized the unconventional character of their requirement, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already set in".
What exactly does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", he responded. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the elder child had absorbed "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family told the consultant they hoped to prevent history to happen again with their infant.
The plan: To engage a English tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the education at the start here is kind of osmotic," stated Adam.
It's by means of this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will adopt the English characteristics they aim to impart.
The consultant said the tutor must be an individual who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – 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 doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told him the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in equestrian activities, skiing, creative fields and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
More than that though, he stated the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "equestrian training and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will bring about achievement and provide access.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he adds.
Yet, despite all this instruction in "English culture", would the child pick up so-called cultural influence from the multicultural family he lives with regardless?
"Certainly", said the CEO. "The parents understand this could fail, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'we should try and let's go as early as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the education sector who share these doubts.
Peter Cui, chief executive of Blue Education, who also offer personal educators, commented that "the journey of embracing two identities, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
He explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the age of seven, and had been brought up knowing and practicing both cultures. He went on to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that an individual can act as a living vessel of UK identity, an individual who can possibly transplant the qualities of a English gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"From my perspective, employing a quintessentially British tutor from early childhood will not instantly produce the outcome they desire.
"I did not have such a figure, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to experience numerous of the situations they desire for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, self-identity should not be forced from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, UK identity is something the expert thinks can be educated – and sold.
"I think the situation that the international society holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
