"A family residing in North London wants to find an remarkable and qualified educator to guide their most junior child on his early path to becoming an British gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might naturally skip the phrase "initial stages" as mere an expression.
Yet, it may be the most significant element of this unusual job advert, as it aims to recruit a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of applications have since been sent in since the unidentified family advertised their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has received interest throughout the media, with several asking why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their quest, stated that in spite of initial skepticism, he considered the idea "visionary", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual aspect of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
However, they explained that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already become established".
What exactly does the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", Adam replied. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He said the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family explained to him they wished to avoid the same situation to recur with their younger child.
The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with RP, to guide the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the development at the outset here is somewhat absorbed naturally," said the CEO.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will adopt the British traits they want to impart.
He explained the tutor had to be an individual who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, the arts and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Furthermore though, he explained the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son grow into a "UK sophisticate" will bring about achievement and provide access.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he comments.
Yet, notwithstanding all this instruction in "English culture", might the child adopt alleged cultural influence from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Yes", replied Adam. "The parents understand this could fail, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'we should try and let's go as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Impractical
There are some in the tutoring industry who express those doubts.
An education leader, head and founder of an educational organization, who provides private tutors, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
The expert wrote that he had emigrated from China to the Britain at the time of seven, and had been educated experiencing and living two backgrounds. He went on to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that one individual can act as a representation of UK identity, an individual who can in some way transfer the characteristics of a British gentleman onto a 12-month-old child, appears idealistic and unrealistic," he commented.
"From my perspective, employing a typically English tutor from infancy will not necessarily achieve the outcome they want.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to live numerous of the situations they hope for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, self-identity can not be dictated from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, English culture is something the CEO thinks can be taught – and commercialized.
"I believe the situation that the world holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
