"A family based in North London wants to find an extraordinary and skilled instructor to support their most junior child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might easily skip the wording "first-steps" as just figurative language.
Yet, it could be the most significant element of this unique position posting, as it aims to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of applications have since been sent in since the unnamed family advertised their call for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".
In recent few weeks, the listing has received notice across the media, with many asking why?
Innovative Idea
The CEO, head and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that notwithstanding early scepticism, he found the idea "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he noted they recognized the unusual aspect of their demand, and how immature their son is.
But, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had by then become established".
What precisely does the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", the expert answered. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the firstborn had picked up "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family told him they wished to avoid history to recur with their infant.
The plan: To bring in a British tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the development at the start here is kind of acquired indirectly," explained the CEO.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the UK customs they want to impart.
The consultant said the tutor had to be somebody who went to "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed him the chosen tutor should preferably also have familiarity of or passion in equestrian activities, skiing, the arts and music so as to inspire the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a range of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will bring about achievement and provide access.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he notes.
Yet, in spite of all this instruction in "English culture", would the child absorb what is termed cultural bias from the globally influenced family he is raised by anyway?
"Absolutely", said he. "The family know this may not work, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as quickly as we can', because the price of it is not relevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the private teaching field who express these reservations.
Another CEO, head and founder of Blue Education, who provides personal educators, commented that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
The expert wrote that he had emigrated from the Far East to the UK at the time of 7 years old, and had been raised experiencing and practicing dual heritages. He progressed to learn at Cambridge University.
"The notion that an individual can serve as a representation of UK identity, someone who can somehow transplant the qualities of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, seems to me naive and impractical," he wrote.
"Based on my background, employing a distinctly British tutor from early childhood will will not instantly produce the goal they hope for.
"I never had such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to experience many of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, cultural identity can not be forced from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, UK identity is something the CEO believes can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I think the reality that the international society regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
