"A family based in the northern part of London is looking for an remarkable and skilled tutor to assist their most junior child on his early path to turning into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might naturally skip the wording "initial stages" as mere an expression.
However, it might be the crucial element of this distinctive employment listing, as it seeks to hire a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have now been submitted since the unnamed 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 interest in the news, with several wondering why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their hunt, stated that in spite of early doubt, he viewed the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual nature of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
However, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural influence had already become established".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert responded. "The way you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the older sibling had absorbed "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent history to recur with their younger child.
The intention: To engage a UK tutor, who must speak with RP, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the development at the outset here is rather absorbed naturally," explained the CEO.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will pick up the UK customs they aim to cultivate.
He noted the tutor must be somebody who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he added.
Money No Object
The family informed him the chosen tutor should ideally also have understanding of or enthusiasm in riding, skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a diverse set of interests.
Furthermore though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son develop into a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and open doors.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he adds.
However, in spite of all this instruction in "UK identity", would the child absorb alleged cultural influence from the multicultural family he is raised by anyway?
"Yes", said Adam. "They understand this may not work, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the education sector who share similar reservations.
Peter Cui, chief executive of Blue Education, who supplies private tutors, commented that "the development of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
He wrote that he had emigrated from China to the UK at the time of seven, and had been educated experiencing and living two backgrounds. He went on to learn at Cambridge University.
"The notion that an individual can serve as a representation of UK identity, a person who can in some way transplant the characteristics of a UK sophisticate upon a infant child, seems to me idealistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"In my experience, having a typically UK tutor from infancy will will not instantly create the result they desire.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and yet I have been lucky enough to experience numerous of the experiences they desire for their son."
He added: "The truth is, self-identity should not be forced from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, English culture is something the CEO thinks can be educated – and marketed.
"I believe the situation that the world views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
