"A family residing in north London seeks an exceptional and qualified educator to support their youngest child on his early path to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might readily overlook the phrase "first-steps" as mere a turn of phrase.
Yet, it might be the crucial element of this unique employment listing, as it seeks to find a mentor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of submissions have since been received since the unnamed family posted their call for the highly paid tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the post has received interest in the news, with numerous asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their search, explained that notwithstanding initial skepticism, he viewed the plan "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual nature of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural influence had by then set in".
What precisely does the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", he responded. "How you eat, how you speak".
He stated the firstborn had absorbed "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family told Adam they did not want this pattern to recur with their infant.
The strategy: To hire a English tutor, who must speak with RP, to shape the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the education at the outset here is rather osmotic," said the expert.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will acquire the UK customs they aim to instil.
The consultant noted the tutor had to be an individual who went to "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in horse riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he said the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a range of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will bring about achievement and create opportunities.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he notes.
However, in spite of all this tutelage in "UK identity", would the child adopt alleged cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he is raised by anyway?
"Yes", answered Adam. "The family realize this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'we should try and let's go as early 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 those doubts.
An education leader, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who also offer individual instructors, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
The expert wrote that he had moved from China to the United Kingdom at the time of childhood, and had been brought up knowing and practicing dual heritages. He progressed to learn at Cambridge University.
"The concept that one individual can function as a embodiment of English culture, a person who can possibly transfer the qualities of a English gentleman upon a one-year-old child, seems to me idealistic and impractical," he commented.
"Based on my background, engaging a typically UK tutor from early childhood will will not necessarily achieve the result they desire.
"I did not have such a tutor, and however I have been fortunate enough to enjoy many of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, self-identity should not be imposed from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the CEO thinks can be educated – and sold.
"I believe the situation that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
