"A family located in north London is looking for an extraordinary and experienced instructor to assist their smallest child on his early path to becoming an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily overlook the wording "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
However, it could be the most important element of this distinctive employment listing, as it attempts to find a teacher for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of responses have already been sent in since the unidentified family advertised their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has attracted attention across the news, with numerous questioning why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their hunt, said that notwithstanding first skepticism, he viewed the plan "visionary", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they recognized the unconventional aspect of their demand, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already set in".
But what did the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", Adam replied. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family informed Adam they wished to avoid this pattern to recur with their infant.
The plan: To bring in a UK tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to influence the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the development at the start here is kind of absorbed naturally," said the CEO.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will pick up the English characteristics they want to instil.
Adam noted the tutor must be someone who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator simply needs to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed the expert the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he said the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son grow into a "English gentleman" will lead to success and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he adds.
But, despite all this instruction in "UK identity", would the child absorb what is termed cultural leaning from the international family he resides with regardless?
"Certainly", answered he. "They understand this could fail, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the education sector who express similar doubts.
Peter Cui, head and founder of a tutoring service, who provides personal educators, stated that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
The expert wrote that he had moved from the Far East to the Britain at the period of childhood, and had been brought up experiencing and embodying dual heritages. He progressed to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The idea that an individual can serve as a living vessel of UK identity, someone who can possibly transplant the attributes of a British gentleman to a one-year-old child, appears optimistic and impractical," he stated.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially UK tutor from early childhood will does not instantly produce the outcome they hope for.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and yet I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the situations they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be forced from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, UK identity is something the expert thinks can be educated – and marketed.
"I think the situation that the international society views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
