"A family located in North London is looking for an extraordinary and skilled tutor to support their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily overlook the term "beginning" as mere figurative language.
However, it might be the most important element of this unique position posting, as it attempts to find a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Many of applications have already been submitted since the anonymous family advertised their call for the highly paid tutor, who must be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has gained notice in the news, with many asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their quest, stated that despite first scepticism, he found the plan "far sighted", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they recognized the unconventional nature of their demand, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already set in".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", he replied. "The way you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the elder child had adopted "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family explained to him they did not want history to recur with their infant.
The strategy: To engage a English tutor, who must speak with RP, to shape the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the start here is somewhat osmotic," stated Adam.
It's by means of this subtle influence that the family are hoping the child will acquire the English characteristics they want to instil.
Adam explained the tutor must be someone who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Money No Object
The family informed the expert the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, skiing, creative fields and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a wide range of passions.
Furthermore though, he said the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, guiding their son become a "UK sophisticate" will lead to accomplishment and provide access.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he comments.
Yet, notwithstanding all this instruction in "Britishness", could the child adopt alleged cultural influence from the multicultural family he is raised by anyway?
"Absolutely", answered the CEO. "They realize this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'we should try and we should start as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he said.
Impractical
Several in the private teaching field who express these doubts.
Peter Cui, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, stated that "the development of becoming bicultural, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
The expert wrote that he had emigrated from China to the Britain at the period of seven, and had been brought up experiencing and embodying two backgrounds. He went on to study at Cambridge University.
"The notion that one individual can serve as a embodiment of UK identity, a person who can possibly transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman onto a one-year-old child, appears optimistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"From my perspective, having a distinctly English tutor from early childhood will will not necessarily create the result they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with such a figure, and yet I have been lucky enough to enjoy several of the situations they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, personal identity can not be imposed from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, English culture is something the expert believes can be taught – and sold.
"I think the situation that the global community holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
