"A household residing in North London is looking for an extraordinary and qualified educator to support their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might readily skip the phrase "initial stages" as mere figurative language.
Yet, it may be the most important part of this unusual job advert, as it attempts to recruit a teacher for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of applications have since been sent in since the unidentified family posted their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".
During the past few weeks, the advert has attracted notice throughout the media, with many wondering why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their search, stated that notwithstanding early skepticism, he found the concept "far sighted", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he noted they recognized the unconventional character of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
But, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural influence had already taken hold".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam answered. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He explained the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent history to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To engage a British tutor, who must speak with RP, to shape the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the education at the start here is somewhat osmotic," said Adam.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will adopt the British traits they want to cultivate.
Adam noted 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 educator simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Money No Object
The family informed him the successful candidate should preferably also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in riding, winter sports, the arts and music so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he said the family desired the tutor to register the child on a range of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son develop into a "English gentleman" will lead to achievement and create opportunities.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he notes.
Yet, notwithstanding all this instruction in "Britishness", could the child adopt so-called cultural influence from the international family he resides with anyway?
"Absolutely", answered he. "The parents understand this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the private teaching field who express those doubts.
An education leader, chief executive of an educational organization, who provides personal educators, wrote that "the process of becoming bicultural, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert wrote that he had moved from the Far East to the Britain at the period of childhood, and had been raised knowing and embodying dual heritages. He progressed to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that an individual can act as a living vessel of Britishness, someone who can possibly transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman to a one-year-old child, seems to me naive and impractical," he wrote.
"Based on my background, employing a typically UK tutor from infancy will will not instantly achieve the result they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and yet I have been privileged enough to live many of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, personal identity can not be forced from the outside; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the CEO thinks can be instructed – and commercialized.
"In my view the situation that the world holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
