"A household located in North London is looking for an exceptional and skilled tutor to assist their most junior child on his early path to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might readily miss the term "beginning" as just a turn of phrase.
But, it might be the most significant element of this unique job advert, as it aims to find a teacher for a infant.
Many of applications have already been submitted since the anonymous family advertised their request for the highly paid tutor, who must be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the post has gained interest across the press, with many wondering why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that in spite of early skepticism, he viewed the plan "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he said they appreciated the atypical nature of their requirement, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already become established".
What exactly did the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam responded. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the firstborn had adopted "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent the same situation to repeat itself with their new baby.
The strategy: To hire a British tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the education at the outset here is kind of absorbed naturally," stated the CEO.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will adopt the English characteristics they wish to cultivate.
He 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 instructor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed Adam the successful candidate should preferably also have understanding of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, skiing, the arts and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
More than that though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to register 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 minds, assisting their son grow into a "English gentleman" will result in achievement and open doors.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he notes.
Yet, in spite of all this tutelage in "English culture", would the child adopt alleged cultural leaning from the multicultural family he resides with in any case?
"Certainly", replied he. "The parents understand this may not work, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'we should try and let's go as soon as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Impractical
There are some in the education sector who share those concerns.
Peter Cui, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the process of embracing two identities, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
Peter explained that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the age of childhood, and had been brought up experiencing and living both cultures. He went on to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that one individual can serve as a living vessel of English culture, someone who can somehow impart the attributes of a UK sophisticate onto a infant child, strikes me as naive and unrealistic," he commented.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially English tutor from early childhood will does not instantly achieve the result they hope for.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to enjoy numerous of the situations they desire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, personal identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, UK identity is something the expert believes can be educated – and commercialized.
"I believe the reality that the global community views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
