"A family residing in north London seeks an exceptional and experienced educator to support their smallest child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might naturally overlook the wording "first-steps" as mere figurative language.
Yet, it may be the most important part of this distinctive job advert, as it aims to find a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Many of applications have now been received since the anonymous family posted their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has received attention throughout the press, with several asking why?
Innovative Idea
The CEO, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their quest, stated that notwithstanding first skepticism, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he said they recognized the atypical nature of their request, and how early in age their son is.
But, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had by then set in".
But what does the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the firstborn had adopted "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family told Adam they did not want this pattern to repeat itself with their new baby.
The strategy: To hire a British tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the learning at the start here is rather absorbed naturally," explained Adam.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the British traits they want to cultivate.
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 aspire to send their son to".
"The educator must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Money No Object
The family told him the chosen tutor should preferably also have understanding of or passion in horse riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a diverse set of passions.
More than that though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "equestrian training and picking up an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and provide access.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he notes.
However, notwithstanding all this guidance in "Britishness", would the child pick up so-called cultural bias from the international family he lives with regardless?
"Yes", replied he. "The family know this could fail, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as soon as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who express those doubts.
Another CEO, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who also offer individual instructors, commented that "the process of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
He noted that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been brought up understanding and embodying two backgrounds. He progressed to study at Cambridge University.
"The idea that one individual can function as a representation of English culture, someone who can somehow transfer the characteristics of a British gentleman to a one-year-old child, appears naive and impractical," he wrote.
"From my perspective, engaging a typically UK tutor from babyhood will not instantly produce the goal they hope for.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to enjoy numerous of the situations they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, personal identity can not be dictated from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, English culture is something Adam hopes can be educated – and sold.
"In my view the situation that the international society holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
