"A family located in North London wants to find an extraordinary and experienced tutor to assist their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this post, you might naturally miss the term "beginning" as just an expression.
However, it might be the most significant part of this unique position posting, as it attempts to find a teacher for a one-year-old.
Many of responses have now been sent in since the unidentified family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted notice across the press, with many wondering why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their quest, explained that in spite of early skepticism, he found the concept "visionary", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he mentioned they recognized the unusual nature of their demand, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural bias had already set in".
What precisely does the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam responded. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the elder child had adopted "really subtle, body language" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family told Adam they wished to avoid the same situation to repeat itself with their younger child.
The plan: To hire a British tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is rather osmotic," stated Adam.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will pick up the UK customs they aim to impart.
He said the tutor needed to be somebody who went to "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator must be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to him the successful candidate should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in horse riding, skiing, the arts and music so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he said the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will result in success and provide access.
"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he notes.
Yet, despite all this guidance in "UK identity", would the child pick up what is termed cultural bias from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Yes", said the CEO. "The family realize this may not work, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'let's give it a go 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 these doubts.
Another CEO, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies private tutors, wrote that "the development of becoming bicultural, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from Asia to the UK at the period of 7 years old, and had been educated understanding and embodying both cultures. He continued to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that an individual can serve as a representation of Britishness, an individual who can somehow transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate upon a infant child, seems to me naive and impractical," he commented.
"From my perspective, having a quintessentially British tutor from infancy will not instantly create the goal they hope for.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live many of the situations they hope for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, personal identity can not be forced from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, Britishness is something Adam hopes can be taught – and marketed.
"I believe the reality that the international society holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
