"A family located in North London seeks an remarkable and skilled tutor to support their most junior child on his early path to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily miss the term "initial stages" as mere figurative language.
However, it may be the most significant element of this distinctive job advert, as it seeks to recruit a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Many of submissions have already been sent in since the unnamed family advertised their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the advert has received interest throughout the press, with several asking why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their search, said that in spite of early scepticism, he considered the plan "visionary", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual character of their demand, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already taken hold".
What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", Adam replied. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the older sibling had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family told him they hoped to prevent history to recur with their younger child.
The strategy: To bring in a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the learning at the beginning here is kind of osmotic," explained the CEO.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will adopt the British traits they want to instil.
The consultant noted the tutor had to be somebody who studied at "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in equestrian activities, skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a wide range of interests.
Additionally though, he said the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will bring about achievement and create opportunities.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he notes.
But, in spite of all this guidance in "UK identity", would the child adopt what is termed cultural leaning from the multicultural family he resides with anyway?
"Absolutely", said the CEO. "The family realize this may not work, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'we should try and let's go as early as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Impractical
There are some in the private teaching field who share these reservations.
An education leader, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the development of embracing two identities, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
The expert noted that he had emigrated from China to the UK at the age of seven, and had been raised understanding and embodying dual heritages. He continued to study at Cambridge University.
"The notion that an individual can serve as a living vessel of English culture, a person who can in some way transplant the qualities of a UK sophisticate onto a one-year-old child, seems to me idealistic and unrealistic," he stated.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially UK tutor from infancy will does not necessarily create the outcome they hope for.
"I did not have such a tutor, and yet I have been lucky enough to live numerous of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, personal identity should not be dictated from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, UK identity is something the CEO believes can be educated – and commercialized.
"I think the reality that the international society views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
