"A family based in North London is looking for an remarkable and experienced instructor to support their youngest child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might naturally skip the wording "beginning" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it might be the most significant element of this unusual position posting, as it attempts to find a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Many of submissions have since been submitted since the unidentified family published their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
During the past few weeks, the post has received notice across the media, with several questioning why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their quest, said that despite early scepticism, he viewed the idea "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they appreciated the atypical aspect of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural influence had already set in".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert answered. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He stated the elder child had adopted "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family told him they wished to avoid the same situation to repeat itself with their infant.
The plan: To engage a UK tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is somewhat acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will acquire the British traits they wish to impart.
The consultant explained the tutor must be somebody who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they may not realize they're doing, simply by nature," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to Adam the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to influence the child in a wide range of passions.
Furthermore though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son develop into a "English gentleman" will lead to accomplishment and create opportunities.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he comments.
However, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "UK identity", might the child pick up what is termed cultural influence from the international family he lives with regardless?
"Yes", replied Adam. "The parents understand this could fail, but they've just taken the view of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the education sector who share those doubts.
Peter Cui, head and founder of Blue Education, who also offer personal educators, commented that "the development of becoming bicultural, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
Peter noted that he had moved from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the time of 7 years old, and had been brought up knowing and practicing both cultures. He went on to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that an individual can function as a living vessel of English culture, someone who can possibly impart the qualities of a UK sophisticate onto a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and unfeasible," he commented.
"In my experience, employing a typically UK tutor from infancy will will not automatically create the outcome they hope for.
"I did not have such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to experience many of the situations they desire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, personal identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert thinks can be instructed – and commercialized.
"In my view the situation that the global community regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
