"A family based in North London seeks an exceptional and qualified tutor to support their most junior child on his initial journey to becoming an British gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might naturally overlook the term "initial stages" as mere a turn of phrase.
Yet, it could be the most important element of this distinctive position posting, as it attempts to hire a tutor for a infant.
Numerous of applications have now been received since the unidentified family published their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted attention in the press, with several questioning why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their quest, stated that notwithstanding first scepticism, he considered the concept "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he mentioned they recognized the unconventional nature of their request, and how early in age their son is.
However, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already become established".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he responded. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the firstborn had absorbed "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family informed him they wished to avoid this pattern to recur with their younger child.
The strategy: To hire a English tutor, who must speak with RP, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the beginning here is kind of acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will acquire the UK customs they wish to instil.
The consultant said the tutor must be somebody who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator must be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told him the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a wide range of interests.
Additionally though, he said the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son become a "British gentleman" will lead to success and provide access.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he comments.
Yet, despite all this instruction in "UK identity", could the child adopt alleged cultural bias from the international family he lives with in any case?
"Absolutely", replied he. "The family realize this may not work, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as soon as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the education sector who have similar reservations.
Another CEO, head and founder of an educational organization, who also offer personal educators, stated that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert wrote that he had moved from Asia to the United Kingdom at the time of seven, and had been raised understanding and practicing dual heritages. He progressed to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that a single person can act as a living vessel of English culture, a person who can possibly impart the attributes of a English gentleman upon a one-year-old child, strikes me as optimistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"From my perspective, engaging a distinctly English tutor from infancy will does not automatically achieve the goal they desire.
"I never had such a tutor, and however I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the situations they desire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, cultural identity should not be forced from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, UK identity is something the CEO thinks can be educated – and commercialized.
"In my view the reality that the world views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
