"A household based in north London is looking for an remarkable and qualified tutor to guide their most junior child on his initial journey to becoming an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily skip the wording "beginning" as just figurative language.
Yet, it might be the most important element of this unusual position posting, as it attempts to find a tutor for a infant.
Hundreds of applications have already been received since the unidentified family posted their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the post has attracted interest throughout the news, with numerous wondering why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their quest, explained that in spite of first skepticism, he viewed the idea "visionary", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he said they understood the unusual character of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural bias had already become established".
What exactly does the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert responded. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the older sibling had absorbed "really subtle, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family explained to him they wished to avoid history to happen again with their new baby.
The strategy: To engage a UK tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the education at the start here is kind of absorbed naturally," said the CEO.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will pick up the UK customs they wish to instil.
The consultant said the tutor had to be an individual who studied at "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to inspire the child in a wide range of passions.
Furthermore though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a range of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will result in accomplishment and provide access.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he notes.
But, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "Britishness", would the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the multicultural family he is raised by regardless?
"Absolutely", replied the CEO. "They realize this could fail, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he said.
Impractical
Several in the education sector who have these concerns.
An education leader, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, stated that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert explained that he had relocated from Asia to the Britain at the time of childhood, and had been raised experiencing and living dual heritages. He continued to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that a single person can function as a living vessel of UK identity, an individual who can in some way transfer the qualities of a UK sophisticate onto a infant child, strikes me as idealistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, engaging a typically British tutor from early childhood will does not instantly produce the outcome they want.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live numerous of the experiences they hope for their son."
He added: "The fact is, cultural identity cannot be forced from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, English culture is something the CEO thinks can be instructed – and marketed.
"I believe the reality that the international society regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
