"Parents located in the northern part of London is looking for an remarkable and skilled educator to guide their smallest child on his initial journey to becoming an British gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might readily miss the term "initial stages" as mere figurative language.
However, it may be the crucial element of this unique employment listing, as it seeks to hire a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have already been sent in since the unidentified family published their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the post has gained interest in the press, with numerous questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, chief executive of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their search, explained that in spite of first doubt, he found the concept "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he said they appreciated the unusual character of their request, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated 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 by then set in".
But what does the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam responded. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the elder child had adopted "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family explained to him they wished to avoid history to recur with their younger child.
The intention: To engage a UK tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the development at the beginning here is kind of acquired indirectly," stated the expert.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will pick up the UK customs they want to instil.
He said the tutor must be someone who went to "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told Adam the successful candidate should preferably also have knowledge of or interest in equestrian activities, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to influence the child in a wide range of passions.
Additionally though, he explained the family desired the tutor to register the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son develop into a "British gentleman" will lead to achievement and open doors.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he adds.
However, despite all this instruction in "UK identity", might the child pick up what is termed cultural bias from the international family he lives with in any case?
"Yes", replied he. "They understand this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as early as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the tutoring industry who share these reservations.
An education leader, chief executive of a tutoring service, who provides personal educators, stated that "the development of becoming bicultural, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
He explained that he had relocated from the Far East to the UK at the period of childhood, and had been raised knowing and embodying two backgrounds. He continued to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that an individual can function as a living vessel of UK identity, someone who can somehow impart the qualities of a English gentleman upon a one-year-old child, seems to me naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"From my perspective, engaging a distinctly British tutor from early childhood will not automatically produce the result they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy several of the situations they aspire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, personal identity can not be imposed from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, UK identity is something the expert thinks can be educated – and marketed.
"In my view the reality that the world views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
