"A household located in North London seeks an exceptional and skilled educator to support their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might easily overlook the phrase "beginning" as mere figurative language.
However, it might be the most significant element of this distinctive job advert, as it aims to hire a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have now been submitted since the unidentified family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
During the past few weeks, the advert has received interest in the media, with several wondering why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their quest, stated that notwithstanding early doubt, he found the concept "visionary", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he noted they appreciated the unconventional nature of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already set in".
But what does the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", he replied. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He stated the elder child had absorbed "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family informed Adam they did not want the same situation to recur with their infant.
The intention: To hire a UK tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the learning at the outset here is kind of absorbed naturally," explained the expert.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will pick up the English characteristics they aim to instil.
He explained the tutor must be somebody who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have understanding of or enthusiasm in horse riding, winter sports, creative fields and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Additionally though, he said the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son become a "English gentleman" will lead to success and open doors.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he comments.
Yet, in spite of all this instruction in "English culture", might the child adopt what is termed cultural influence from the globally influenced family he is raised by anyway?
"Absolutely", replied the CEO. "The parents know this could fail, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'we should try and we should start as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the education sector who share these reservations.
Another CEO, head and founder of Blue Education, who provides individual instructors, stated that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
He wrote that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the time of childhood, and had been educated knowing and embodying two backgrounds. He continued to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The notion that a single person can act as a embodiment of English culture, a person who can in some way transplant the characteristics of a British gentleman onto a infant child, strikes me as naive and unfeasible," he stated.
"From my perspective, employing a distinctly British tutor from babyhood will does not instantly produce the goal they hope for.
"I did not have such a figure, and however I have been privileged enough to live many of the experiences they hope for their son."
He continued: "The reality is, cultural 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.
"In my view the reality that the world holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
