"Parents residing in north London seeks an exceptional and experienced educator to guide their smallest child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might readily skip the phrase "initial stages" as simple a turn of phrase.
But, it might be the most significant element of this distinctive job advert, as it seeks to find a mentor for a infant.
Many of submissions have now been submitted since the anonymous family posted their search for the highly paid tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
During the past few weeks, the post has received attention across the media, with numerous asking why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their hunt, said that in spite of initial doubt, he viewed the concept "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he said they understood the unusual nature of their request, and how immature their son is.
However, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already taken hold".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", he responded. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the firstborn had absorbed "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family explained to Adam they wished to avoid the same situation to happen again with their younger child.
The strategy: To engage a British tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," stated Adam.
It's through this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the English characteristics they aim to cultivate.
He explained the tutor needed to be an individual who studied at "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds 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 aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told the expert the successful candidate should ideally also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in horse riding, alpine skiing, the arts and musical activities so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
Additionally though, he explained the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, guiding their son grow into a "British gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and provide access.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he notes.
But, despite all this instruction in "English culture", might the child pick up what is termed cultural bias from the globally influenced family he resides with in any case?
"Absolutely", answered he. "They understand this could fail, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'we should try and we should start as early as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the education sector who have those reservations.
An education leader, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, wrote that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
Peter wrote that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the time of childhood, and had been educated experiencing and practicing both cultures. He went on to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that an individual can act as a living vessel of English culture, someone who can in some way transfer the qualities of a UK sophisticate to a infant child, strikes me as naive and unfeasible," he commented.
"From my perspective, engaging a quintessentially British tutor from early childhood will does not automatically produce the result they desire.
"I never had such a figure, and yet I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the situations they aspire for their son."
He added: "The truth is, personal identity can not be forced from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, UK identity is something the CEO thinks can be educated – and sold.
"I think the situation that the world holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
