"Parents located in North London is looking for an remarkable and qualified educator to assist their youngest child on his first steps to turning into an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily skip the phrase "first-steps" as mere a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the most important aspect of this distinctive employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have since been submitted since the unnamed family advertised their call for the highly paid tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
During the past few weeks, the post has attracted notice across the press, with several questioning why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their hunt, explained that notwithstanding early scepticism, he viewed the plan "visionary", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he said they recognized the unconventional character of their request, and how early in age their son is.
However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already set in".
What exactly does the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert answered. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family told him they hoped to prevent the same situation to recur with their new baby.
The strategy: To hire a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the education at the outset here is kind of osmotic," explained the CEO.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will acquire the British traits they aim to impart.
He noted the tutor had to be someone who went to "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator must be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Money No Object
The family explained to the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in horse riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to inspire the child in a wide range of hobbies.
More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and picking up an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will lead to achievement and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he comments.
Yet, notwithstanding all this instruction in "English culture", would the child pick up so-called cultural influence from the multicultural family he is raised by in any case?
"Absolutely", replied Adam. "The parents know this could fail, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he said.
Impractical
A number of in the private teaching field who share those concerns.
An education leader, head and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer personal educators, stated that "the development of becoming bicultural, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
He wrote that he had relocated from China to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been educated experiencing and living two backgrounds. He continued to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that an individual can function as a embodiment of UK identity, an individual who can somehow transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate to a infant child, appears idealistic and unrealistic," he stated.
"Based on my background, having a quintessentially UK tutor from babyhood will not automatically create the goal they desire.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to experience numerous of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, personal identity cannot be forced from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, UK identity is something the CEO hopes can be instructed – and marketed.
"In my view the situation that the global community views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
