"A household based in North London is looking for an remarkable and experienced educator to assist their smallest child on his initial journey to turning into an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might readily skip the wording "first-steps" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the most significant aspect of this unusual position posting, as it seeks to recruit a teacher for a one-year-old.
Numerous of applications have now been received since the anonymous family advertised their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the post has received notice across the news, with numerous questioning why?
Innovative Idea
The CEO, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their quest, explained that despite initial doubt, he viewed the concept "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he said they appreciated the atypical nature of their demand, and how young their son is.
However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already become established".
But what does the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", Adam responded. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the firstborn had picked up "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family told Adam they hoped to prevent this pattern to repeat itself with their infant.
The intention: To hire a UK tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the learning at the outset here is somewhat acquired indirectly," stated Adam.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will acquire the English characteristics they aim to impart.
The consultant noted the tutor had to be someone who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have understanding of or interest in equestrian activities, skiing, creative fields and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a wide range of passions.
Furthermore though, he explained the family desired the tutor to register the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and picking up an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will result in accomplishment and create opportunities.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he notes.
Yet, in spite of all this instruction in "Britishness", could the child adopt what is termed cultural influence from the international family he is raised by anyway?
"Certainly", said he. "They understand this could fail, but they've just taken the view of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as soon as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he said.
Impractical
There are some in the education sector who share those concerns.
Another CEO, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, commented that "the development of becoming bicultural, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert wrote that he had relocated from China to the Britain at the age of childhood, and had been brought up knowing and practicing both cultures. He went on to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that one individual can serve as a living vessel of English culture, an individual who can in some way transplant the characteristics of a UK sophisticate onto a 12-month-old child, appears idealistic and impractical," he stated.
"Based on my background, employing a distinctly UK tutor from infancy will will not automatically create the result they desire.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to live numerous of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be forced from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, UK identity is something the expert thinks can be educated – and marketed.
"In my view the situation that the global community views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
