"Parents based in north London seeks an exceptional and experienced educator to guide their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might naturally skip the wording "beginning" as just an expression.
However, it may be the most important element of this unique employment listing, as it aims to hire a teacher for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of submissions have now been submitted since the unidentified family posted their search for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".
In recent few weeks, the post has received attention across the media, with several asking why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their search, stated that despite initial doubt, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he said they understood the atypical character of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
However, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural influence had already taken hold".
What exactly does the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", the expert replied. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He said the firstborn had adopted "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family told the consultant they wished to avoid history to recur with their younger child.
The strategy: To hire a British tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the development at the start here is kind of acquired indirectly," said the expert.
It's through this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will acquire the English characteristics they aim to impart.
He said the tutor must be an individual who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in horse riding, alpine skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son grow into a "British gentleman" will lead to achievement and open doors.
"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he comments.
But, despite all this tutelage in "UK identity", could the child adopt what is termed cultural influence from the multicultural family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", replied the CEO. "The family understand this could fail, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'we should try and we should start as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the education sector who have similar concerns.
Another CEO, head and founder of Blue Education, who provides personal educators, commented that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
He explained that he had relocated from China to the United Kingdom at the time of seven, and had been brought up experiencing and embodying dual heritages. He went on to study at Cambridge University.
"The notion that a single person can serve as a living vessel of Britishness, an individual who can in some way impart the attributes of a English gentleman to a infant child, strikes me as optimistic and impractical," he commented.
"Based on my background, employing a quintessentially British tutor from babyhood will will not instantly create the outcome they hope for.
"I never had such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the experiences they hope for their son."
He added: "The reality is, personal identity should not be imposed from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert thinks can be educated – and commercialized.
"I think the situation that the global community views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
