"Parents based in the northern part of London is looking for an extraordinary and skilled educator to assist their most junior child on his early path to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might naturally overlook the wording "initial stages" as mere figurative language.
However, it could be the most significant part of this unusual position posting, as it aims to hire a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of submissions have since been received since the anonymous family posted their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the post has attracted attention in the media, with numerous questioning why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their search, stated that notwithstanding initial scepticism, he found the idea "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical character of their request, 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 older child was five, and by that age "cultural influence had by then become established".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert replied. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He stated the firstborn had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family told him they did not want this pattern to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To hire a English tutor, who should speak with RP, to influence the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the education at the outset here is somewhat osmotic," stated Adam.
It's through this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will acquire the British traits they want to impart.
The consultant said the tutor had to be someone who studied at "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to him the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in riding, alpine skiing, creative fields and musical activities so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
Additionally though, he said the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son grow into a "English gentleman" will bring about achievement and provide access.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he comments.
Yet, notwithstanding all this guidance in "English culture", might the child pick up so-called cultural influence from the multicultural family he is raised by regardless?
"Certainly", said he. "The parents know this may not work, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'we should try and we should start as soon as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the tutoring industry who have these reservations.
An education leader, head and founder of Blue Education, who supplies personal educators, stated that "the development of becoming bicultural, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert wrote that he had emigrated from China to the UK at the age of seven, and had been raised knowing and living two backgrounds. He went on to learn at Cambridge University.
"The concept that a single person can serve as a representation of UK identity, a person who can somehow transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate upon a infant child, seems to me optimistic and impractical," he stated.
"In my experience, engaging a distinctly English tutor from infancy will not automatically produce the result they want.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and yet I have been lucky enough to enjoy numerous of the experiences they desire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, personal identity cannot be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert hopes can be educated – and commercialized.
"In my view the fact that the world regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
