"Parents located in North London wants to find an exceptional and qualified instructor to assist their youngest child on his early path to becoming an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily overlook the term "initial stages" as mere an expression.
However, it may be the most significant aspect of this unique job advert, as it attempts to hire a mentor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of submissions have already been submitted since the unidentified family advertised their call for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the post has received notice in the media, with several asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their quest, explained that in spite of initial doubt, he viewed the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they understood the unconventional character of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural influence had already become established".
What precisely does the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam replied. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the firstborn had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family told him they hoped to prevent the same situation to happen again with their infant.
The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"Much of the education at the beginning here is kind of acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will pick up the UK customs they wish to instil.
Adam noted the tutor had to be someone who went to "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 appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told him the successful candidate should preferably also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, winter sports, creative fields and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
Additionally though, he said the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son develop into a "British gentleman" will bring about success and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he comments.
However, in spite of all this instruction in "English culture", could the child absorb what is termed cultural influence from the multicultural family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", answered Adam. "The parents realize this may not work, but they've just taken the view of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he explained.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who share similar doubts.
Another CEO, chief executive of Blue Education, who also offer individual instructors, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
He noted that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the time of childhood, and had been raised knowing and practicing both cultures. He went on to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that one individual can act as a representation of English culture, someone who can in some way transplant the qualities of a English gentleman onto a infant child, strikes me as naive and unrealistic," he commented.
"From my perspective, having a quintessentially British tutor from babyhood will will not necessarily achieve the result they hope for.
"I never had such a figure, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy several of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, self-identity should not be imposed from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, English culture is something Adam believes can be taught – and commercialized.
"In my view the situation that the world views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
