"A household based in North London is looking for an remarkable and skilled educator to support their youngest child on his initial journey to growing into an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might readily skip the term "beginning" as mere an expression.
However, it may be the crucial part of this unique employment listing, as it aims to find a mentor for a one-year-old.
Many of applications have already been sent in since the anonymous family posted their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "a uniquely qualified person".
During the past few weeks, the listing has gained notice across the media, with many questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their quest, stated that in spite of first skepticism, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he noted they appreciated the atypical nature of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had by then set in".
What exactly does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", the expert answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had absorbed "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family explained to him they wished to avoid this pattern to recur with their infant.
The strategy: To hire a UK tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the education at the beginning here is somewhat osmotic," explained the CEO.
It's through this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will acquire the UK customs they aim to impart.
The consultant explained the tutor must be an individual who went to "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Money No Object
The family informed the expert the selected educator should preferably also have familiarity of or interest in horse riding, alpine skiing, the arts and musical activities so as to influence the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he stated the family desired the tutor to register the child on a range of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about success and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he notes.
However, despite all this guidance in "Britishness", could the child adopt what is termed cultural bias from the globally influenced family he lives with anyway?
"Yes", said he. "They understand this might not succeed, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who express similar concerns.
Another CEO, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who provides personal educators, stated that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
Peter explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain 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 notion that an individual can act as a living vessel of Britishness, an individual who can in some way impart the qualities of a English gentleman upon a infant child, strikes me as naive and unrealistic," he commented.
"Based on my background, having a typically British tutor from infancy will not necessarily create the result they want.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to live numerous of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, cultural identity cannot be forced from the outside; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, UK identity is something the CEO hopes can be taught – and sold.
"I believe the situation that the world regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
