"A family located in the northern part of London seeks an exceptional and qualified tutor to guide their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily skip the wording "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
Yet, it could be the crucial element of this unique position posting, as it seeks to hire a mentor for a infant.
Hundreds of applications have already been submitted since the unidentified family posted their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
During the past few weeks, the listing has attracted interest throughout the press, with many questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, head and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their hunt, said that despite first scepticism, he viewed the idea "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he said they understood the unconventional character of their demand, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural influence had already become established".
But what did the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam replied. "How you eat, how you speak".
He said the firstborn had absorbed "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent the same situation to happen again with their new baby.
The plan: To engage a British tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the education at the start here is kind of acquired indirectly," explained Adam.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they aim to instil.
The consultant explained the tutor needed to be somebody who studied at "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told him the successful candidate should preferably also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, winter sports, the arts and musical activities so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Additionally though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and provide access.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he adds.
However, despite all this instruction in "UK identity", could the child absorb so-called cultural bias from the multicultural family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", answered Adam. "They understand this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he said.
Impractical
Several in the education sector who have these concerns.
An education leader, chief executive of an educational organization, who provides personal educators, wrote that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
The expert noted that he had moved from the Far East to the UK at the age of childhood, and had been educated experiencing and embodying two backgrounds. He continued to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that a single person can function as a living vessel of English culture, a person who can somehow transfer the characteristics of a English gentleman onto a infant child, seems to me optimistic and unrealistic," he commented.
"From my perspective, engaging a distinctly English tutor from early childhood will will not necessarily achieve the goal they desire.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and yet I have been lucky enough to enjoy several of the situations they desire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, personal identity can not be dictated from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, Britishness is something Adam hopes can be taught – and marketed.
"I think the situation that the global community regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
