"Parents located in north London wants to find an extraordinary and experienced instructor to support their youngest child on his initial journey to growing into an English gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might readily overlook the wording "beginning" as mere an expression.
But, it might be the most important element of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to recruit a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of applications have now been submitted since the unnamed family advertised their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has attracted attention throughout the media, with many questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their quest, said that notwithstanding early doubt, he considered the idea "visionary", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he said they recognized the atypical nature of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already set in".
What exactly did the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", the expert replied. "How you eat, how you speak".
He said the firstborn had absorbed "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family told the consultant they wished to avoid the same situation to recur with their infant.
The strategy: To engage a UK tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the education at the beginning here is kind of absorbed naturally," stated the CEO.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will acquire the British traits they wish to instil.
He explained the tutor needed to be an individual who studied at "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to him the chosen tutor should preferably also have understanding of or enthusiasm in horse riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son develop into a "English gentleman" will result in achievement and provide access.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he comments.
However, notwithstanding all this instruction in "English culture", could the child absorb what is termed cultural influence from the globally influenced family he lives with regardless?
"Yes", replied he. "The family realize this could fail, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who have these concerns.
An education leader, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer individual instructors, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
He wrote that he had emigrated from Asia to the Britain at the period of 7 years old, and had been brought up experiencing and living dual heritages. He went on to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that an individual can act as a living vessel of Britishness, someone who can possibly transplant the attributes of a British gentleman upon a one-year-old child, strikes me as idealistic and impractical," he wrote.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially UK tutor from babyhood will not necessarily achieve the result they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy numerous of the experiences they hope for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, cultural identity should not be imposed from the outside; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the expert thinks can be educated – and commercialized.
"In my view the situation that the world regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
