"A household based in the northern part of London seeks an remarkable and skilled educator to guide their youngest child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might easily miss the term "first-steps" as just figurative language.
However, it might be the most important element of this distinctive job advert, as it seeks to hire a teacher for a infant.
Hundreds of applications have since been received since the anonymous family published their search for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the listing has gained interest across the media, with many questioning why?
Innovative Idea
The CEO, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their quest, explained that notwithstanding first scepticism, he viewed the concept "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he noted they appreciated the atypical character of their demand, and how immature their son is.
But, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already set in".
What exactly does the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", he answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family explained to the consultant they did not want this pattern to repeat itself with their new baby.
The strategy: To hire a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the development at the beginning here is somewhat acquired indirectly," explained the CEO.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they want to cultivate.
He said the tutor must be someone who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator must be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Money No Object
The family explained to the expert the successful candidate should preferably also have knowledge of or passion in riding, skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a wide range of passions.
Furthermore though, he stated the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a range of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son become a "English gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and open doors.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he comments.
Yet, notwithstanding all this guidance in "UK identity", would the child adopt so-called cultural influence from the globally influenced family he is raised by anyway?
"Certainly", said he. "The family understand this may not work, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as soon as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he said.
Impractical
Several in the private teaching field who express those reservations.
An education leader, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who supplies personal educators, stated that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
The expert wrote that he had emigrated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been raised experiencing and practicing both cultures. He went on to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that a single person can act as a living vessel of UK identity, an individual who can in some way transfer the qualities of a English gentleman onto a one-year-old child, seems to me naive and unrealistic," he wrote.
"In my experience, having a typically English tutor from babyhood will does not instantly produce the result they hope for.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and however I have been fortunate enough to enjoy several of the experiences they desire for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, personal identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, English culture is something the CEO thinks can be taught – and commercialized.
"In my view the situation that the world holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
