"A family located in north London is looking for an exceptional and experienced tutor to guide their youngest child on his early path to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might readily skip the wording "beginning" as just figurative language.
However, it could be the most significant element of this unusual job advert, as it aims to hire a teacher for a infant.
Hundreds of applications have now been submitted since the anonymous family posted their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "an exceptional individual".
During the past few weeks, the post has attracted interest across the news, with many wondering why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their hunt, explained that in spite of first skepticism, he considered the idea "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he said they appreciated the unconventional aspect of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
But, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had by then become established".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert responded. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He explained the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family informed him they wished to avoid this pattern to happen again with their new baby.
The intention: To bring in a British tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the development at the beginning here is somewhat absorbed naturally," said the expert.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will pick up the English characteristics they aim to cultivate.
The consultant explained the tutor had to be someone who attended "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed the expert the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a wide range of interests.
More than that though, he explained the family desired the tutor to register the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son develop into a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and open doors.
"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he notes.
But, in spite of all this instruction in "English culture", could the child adopt what is termed cultural bias from the globally influenced family he is raised by in any case?
"Certainly", said he. "The family realize this may not work, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'we should try and let's go as early as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he said.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the education sector who express similar concerns.
Another CEO, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who provides private tutors, commented that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
The expert explained that he had moved from China to the UK at the time of childhood, and had been brought up knowing and practicing both cultures. He progressed to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The idea that an individual can function as a embodiment of Britishness, someone who can in some way impart the qualities of a UK sophisticate to a infant child, appears optimistic and impractical," he wrote.
"From my perspective, engaging a typically English tutor from infancy will not instantly achieve the outcome they desire.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to live several of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, cultural identity cannot be forced from the outside; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, English culture is something the expert believes can be instructed – and marketed.
"I think the situation that the international society regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
