"A household located in the northern part of London seeks an remarkable and skilled educator to guide their youngest child on his early path to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily overlook the term "beginning" as simple figurative language.
But, it could be the most important element of this distinctive employment listing, as it attempts to recruit a tutor for a infant.
Hundreds of applications have now been received since the anonymous family advertised their search for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the advert has attracted interest in the media, with numerous wondering why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their hunt, explained that despite early skepticism, he considered the concept "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he said they understood the unconventional nature of their demand, and how immature their son is.
However, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already set in".
But what did the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam answered. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He said the older sibling had picked up "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they did not want the same situation to happen again with their new baby.
The plan: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with RP, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the education at the beginning here is somewhat acquired indirectly," explained Adam.
It's through this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will pick up the British traits they aim to impart.
Adam explained the tutor must be somebody who went to "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he added.
Money No Object
The family explained to him the successful candidate should preferably also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, creative fields and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
More than that though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a range of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son grow into a "British gentleman" will lead to accomplishment and open doors.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he adds.
However, in spite of all this instruction in "UK identity", could the child absorb alleged cultural bias from the globally influenced family he lives with in any case?
"Certainly", said the CEO. "They know this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he explained.
Impractical
There are some in the tutoring industry who express these reservations.
Another CEO, head and founder of Blue Education, who provides individual instructors, wrote that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
He wrote that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the age of 7 years old, and had been raised understanding and living both cultures. He continued to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The concept that a single person can serve as a living vessel of Britishness, someone who can in some way impart the qualities of a UK sophisticate to a infant child, strikes me as naive and unfeasible," he commented.
"Based on my background, engaging a typically UK tutor from infancy will will not automatically create the result they desire.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and however I have been privileged enough to live many of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He added: "The truth is, self-identity cannot be imposed from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, Britishness is something Adam believes can be taught – and sold.
"I believe the reality that the world holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
