"A family located in North London seeks an remarkable and skilled tutor to guide their youngest child on his first steps to turning into an British gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might easily miss the wording "beginning" as just an expression.
Yet, it might be the most significant element of this distinctive employment listing, as it aims to hire a tutor for a infant.
Many of applications have already been submitted since the unnamed family advertised their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has attracted interest throughout the news, with numerous asking why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their hunt, explained that despite initial skepticism, he found the concept "visionary", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he said they understood the atypical nature of their demand, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already set in".
What precisely does the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", he answered. "The way you eat, the way you speak".
He said the older sibling had picked up "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent the same situation to happen again with their infant.
The intention: To hire a English tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the learning at the outset here is rather acquired indirectly," said Adam.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will pick up the English characteristics they want to impart.
He explained the tutor must be somebody who went to "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Money No Object
The family told Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in horse riding, winter sports, creative fields and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
Furthermore though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a range of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will result in achievement and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he notes.
However, notwithstanding all this instruction in "English culture", might the child adopt alleged cultural leaning from the multicultural family he resides with in any case?
"Yes", answered the CEO. "The family realize this may not work, but they've just taken the view of, 'we should try and we should start as early as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he said.
Impractical
There are some in the private teaching field who express these concerns.
Peter Cui, chief executive of Blue Education, who provides personal educators, stated that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert wrote that he had moved from the Far East to the Britain at the time of childhood, and had been raised understanding and embodying both cultures. He continued to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that an individual can act as a embodiment of UK identity, an individual who can somehow transfer the characteristics of a English gentleman upon a one-year-old child, seems to me naive and unfeasible," he commented.
"Based on my background, employing a distinctly British tutor from babyhood will does not automatically create the result they want.
"I did not have such a tutor, and however I have been fortunate enough to enjoy many of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, self-identity should not be dictated from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Of course, English culture is something the CEO believes can be taught – and commercialized.
"In my view the reality that the world holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
