"A household residing in north London is looking for an exceptional and experienced educator to guide their youngest child on his early path to growing into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this post, you might easily skip the wording "initial stages" as just figurative language.
But, it could be the crucial part of this distinctive position posting, as it seeks to find a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of submissions have since been sent in since the unnamed family published their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the post has attracted attention throughout the news, with numerous wondering why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their search, stated that in spite of first doubt, he found the idea "far sighted", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he mentioned they recognized the atypical character of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
But, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural influence had already set in".
What precisely did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he answered. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He said the elder child had picked up "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family explained to the consultant they hoped to prevent this pattern to happen again with their younger child.
The plan: To hire a English tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the learning at the beginning here is rather absorbed naturally," said the CEO.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will pick up the British traits they want to impart.
The consultant said the tutor needed to be someone who studied at "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in horse riding, skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "equestrian training and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son develop into a "English gentleman" will bring about achievement and create opportunities.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he notes.
However, despite all this tutelage in "Britishness", could the child absorb so-called cultural leaning from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", said the CEO. "The parents realize this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as soon as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he said.
Impractical
Several in the education sector who have similar doubts.
An education leader, chief executive of a tutoring service, who supplies personal educators, stated that "the process of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
The expert explained that he had moved from China to the Britain at the period of childhood, and had been educated experiencing and practicing dual heritages. He continued to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that a single person can function as a living vessel of Britishness, an individual who can in some way transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman upon a one-year-old child, strikes me as naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"In my experience, having a quintessentially UK tutor from early childhood will not instantly create the result they hope for.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and however I have been privileged enough to experience numerous of the experiences they hope for their son."
He added: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be dictated from the outside; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert hopes can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I think the fact that the international society regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
