"A household based in North London seeks an exceptional and experienced tutor to assist their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might readily overlook the term "beginning" as mere a turn of phrase.
However, it might be the most important element of this unique employment listing, as it seeks to hire a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Many of responses have since been received since the unidentified family advertised their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has gained notice across the press, with numerous questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their hunt, said that notwithstanding initial skepticism, he considered the plan "visionary", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he noted they recognized the atypical character of their request, and how early in age their son is.
But, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural influence had by then taken hold".
But what did the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam answered. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He said the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family informed him they hoped to prevent the same situation to happen again with their younger child.
The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to shape the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the education at the beginning here is kind of acquired indirectly," stated Adam.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will adopt the UK customs they want to cultivate.
He noted the tutor must be somebody who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator must be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in equestrian activities, winter sports, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a diverse set of passions.
More than that though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son grow into a "English gentleman" will lead to success and provide access.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he adds.
But, despite all this instruction in "UK identity", might the child pick up alleged cultural bias from the international family he resides with anyway?
"Absolutely", answered the CEO. "The parents understand this may not work, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he stated.
Impractical
There are some in the education sector who have those reservations.
Peter Cui, head and founder of a tutoring service, who supplies individual instructors, wrote that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
Peter noted that he had emigrated from China to the UK at the age of 7 years old, and had been brought up knowing and living dual heritages. He continued to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that one individual can serve as a embodiment of English culture, a person who can in some way transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman onto a one-year-old child, appears naive and impractical," he commented.
"In my experience, having a distinctly UK tutor from early childhood will not necessarily create the result they desire.
"I wasn't provided with such a figure, and yet I have been fortunate enough to enjoy several of the situations they hope for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, cultural identity cannot be dictated from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Of course, UK identity is something Adam thinks can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I believe the reality that the world views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
