"A family based in North London seeks an extraordinary and qualified tutor to guide their smallest child on his first steps to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might easily overlook the wording "beginning" as just an expression.
However, it could be the crucial part of this unique job advert, as it seeks to hire a mentor for a infant.
Numerous of submissions have already been received since the unidentified family posted their call for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".
During the past few weeks, the listing has gained attention in the media, with numerous asking why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, head and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their hunt, said that notwithstanding first doubt, he considered the idea "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they recognized the atypical aspect of their requirement, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural bias had already become established".
But what did the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", he answered. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the elder child had picked up "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family informed Adam they did not want history to happen again with their infant.
The strategy: To engage a English tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the education at the start here is rather osmotic," said the CEO.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will pick up the British traits they aim to cultivate.
He explained the tutor must be someone who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Money No Object
The family told the expert the selected educator should preferably also have understanding of or interest in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a diverse set of interests.
More than that though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son grow into a "English gentleman" will result in achievement and provide access.
"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he comments.
But, despite all this guidance in "Britishness", might the child pick up what is termed cultural influence from the globally influenced family he lives with regardless?
"Yes", replied Adam. "They realize this could fail, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'we should try and we should start as early as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he explained.
Impractical
Several in the tutoring industry who have similar reservations.
Another CEO, chief executive of Blue Education, who supplies private tutors, commented that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert wrote that he had moved from Asia to the UK at the age of childhood, and had been brought up experiencing and living two backgrounds. He progressed to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that an individual can serve as a embodiment of Britishness, an individual who can possibly impart the attributes of a British gentleman onto a infant child, strikes me as naive and impractical," he wrote.
"Based on my background, employing a typically UK tutor from infancy will will not automatically create the goal they want.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to enjoy many of the situations they desire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, self-identity can not be dictated from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, UK identity is something Adam believes can be instructed – and sold.
"In my view the reality that the world regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
