"A family located in the northern part of London is looking for an exceptional and qualified instructor to support their youngest child on his first steps to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily overlook the wording "beginning" as just an expression.
But, it may be the most important part of this unique position posting, as it attempts to find a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of submissions have already been received since the anonymous family published their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "an exceptional individual".
In recent few weeks, the advert has received attention across the media, with many questioning why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that in spite of first skepticism, he considered the concept "visionary", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he noted they understood the atypical character of their request, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had by then taken hold".
What precisely did the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", he responded. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He stated the elder child had absorbed "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family told him they wished to avoid this pattern to happen again with their new baby.
The plan: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with RP, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the development at the outset here is rather absorbed naturally," explained the expert.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will adopt the UK customs they wish to cultivate.
The consultant noted the tutor needed to be somebody who studied at "the right kinds of schools – 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 carrying out things they may not realize they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in horse riding, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to influence the child in a diverse set of interests.
Furthermore though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son develop into a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and create opportunities.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he adds.
However, in spite of all this guidance in "English culture", would the child pick up what is termed cultural influence from the multicultural family he is raised by anyway?
"Yes", said Adam. "They understand this may not work, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as early as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he explained.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the education sector who have these doubts.
An education leader, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who also offer private tutors, stated that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
Peter wrote that he had relocated from Asia to the Britain at the age of childhood, and had been raised understanding and living two backgrounds. He went on to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The idea that an individual can act as a living vessel of Britishness, someone who can somehow transfer the characteristics of a British gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and impractical," he commented.
"In my experience, engaging a distinctly UK tutor from infancy will will not automatically create the outcome they desire.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live several of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, self-identity can not be forced from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, English culture is something Adam believes can be instructed – and marketed.
"I believe the situation that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
