"A family based in North London wants to find an exceptional and experienced tutor to support their youngest child on his initial journey to turning into an British gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might easily miss the phrase "beginning" as mere an expression.
But, it could be the crucial aspect of this unusual position posting, as it aims to hire a mentor for a infant.
Hundreds of submissions have already been submitted since the unidentified family published their call for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the listing has received attention across the press, with many questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their search, said that in spite of first skepticism, he viewed the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he said they recognized the unusual character of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
However, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already set in".
What exactly does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert replied. "The way you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the older sibling had absorbed "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family told him they did not want the same situation to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To engage a UK tutor, who should speak with RP, to guide the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the education at the start here is kind of osmotic," stated the CEO.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the English characteristics they want to impart.
Adam explained the tutor must be someone who went to "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Money No Object
The family explained to him the chosen tutor should preferably also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, the arts and music so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
More than that though, he stated the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son develop into a "British gentleman" will result in success and create opportunities.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he comments.
But, in spite of all this tutelage in "Britishness", would the child absorb so-called cultural leaning from the international family he resides with in any case?
"Yes", replied Adam. "They realize this could fail, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as early as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the education sector who express those concerns.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who supplies private tutors, wrote that "the process of embracing two identities, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert noted that he had moved from Asia to the UK at the time of childhood, and had been educated experiencing and living two backgrounds. He progressed to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that a single person can act as a living vessel of English culture, an individual who can possibly impart the characteristics of a UK sophisticate onto a infant child, strikes me as optimistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"From my perspective, employing a quintessentially UK tutor from babyhood will will not necessarily produce the result they desire.
"I never had such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to enjoy many of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The reality is, self-identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Of course, English culture is something the expert hopes can be taught – and commercialized.
"In my view the reality that the international society views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
