"A household residing in the northern part of London seeks an exceptional and qualified instructor to assist their smallest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might naturally overlook the wording "initial stages" as simple an expression.
However, it could be the crucial element of this unique position posting, as it aims to recruit a tutor for a infant.
Hundreds of submissions have already been submitted since the unnamed family published their search for the highly paid tutor, who must be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the post has attracted notice across the media, with numerous questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their search, said that in spite of first skepticism, he viewed the idea "far sighted", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he said they understood the atypical character of their requirement, and how young their son is.
But, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already taken hold".
What exactly does the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", he answered. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He stated the elder child had absorbed "really subtle, body language" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family told Adam they hoped to prevent the same situation to recur with their new baby.
The strategy: To engage a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the development at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," explained the CEO.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will adopt the UK customs they want to impart.
Adam explained the tutor needed to be an individual who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in riding, skiing, creative fields and musical activities so as to shape the child in a wide range of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a range of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son grow into a "UK sophisticate" will bring about accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he adds.
Yet, in spite of all this instruction in "English culture", would the child adopt alleged cultural bias from the international family he is raised by in any case?
"Certainly", said he. "The parents understand this could fail, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'we should try and let's go as soon as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Impractical
A number of in the private teaching field who express these doubts.
Peter Cui, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
Peter wrote that he had relocated from Asia to the Britain at the time of 7 years old, and had been raised understanding and practicing both cultures. He continued to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that a single person can serve as a living vessel of UK identity, someone who can somehow transplant the attributes of a English gentleman to a infant child, seems to me idealistic and unrealistic," he stated.
"In my experience, engaging a distinctly UK tutor from early childhood will does not necessarily produce the result they want.
"I never had such a figure, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy numerous of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The reality is, self-identity should not be forced from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, English culture is something Adam hopes can be educated – and sold.
"I believe the situation that the world holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
