"A family based in North London is looking for an exceptional and qualified educator to guide their most junior child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might naturally overlook the wording "first-steps" as just figurative language.
However, it might be the crucial element of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a mentor for a one-year-old.
Many of responses have now been submitted since the unidentified family advertised their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has gained interest throughout the media, with numerous questioning why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their hunt, said that in spite of initial scepticism, he viewed the plan "visionary", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he noted they recognized the atypical character of their request, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural influence had already taken hold".
What exactly does the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", he replied. "The way you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the older sibling had absorbed "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family informed Adam they wished to avoid history to repeat itself with their infant.
The intention: To engage a English tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to guide the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the learning at the start here is kind of absorbed naturally," explained Adam.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will adopt the English characteristics they wish to cultivate.
Adam explained the tutor needed to be someone who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they may not realize they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Money No Object
The family explained to the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in riding, alpine skiing, the arts and musical activities so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he said the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of classes 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, helping their son develop into a "British gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he comments.
But, in spite of all this guidance in "English culture", would the child absorb what is termed cultural bias from the multicultural family he is raised by in any case?
"Yes", answered Adam. "They know this may not work, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'we should try and let's go as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he explained.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the private teaching field who share these concerns.
An education leader, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who also offer personal educators, stated that "the development of embracing two identities, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
Peter wrote that he had emigrated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the age of childhood, and had been brought up understanding and embodying two backgrounds. He progressed to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The concept that an individual can act as a embodiment of UK identity, a person who can possibly transplant the attributes of a British gentleman to a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and unfeasible," he stated.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially UK tutor from early childhood will not necessarily produce the goal they desire.
"I never had such a figure, and however I have been lucky enough to experience several of the experiences they hope for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be dictated from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, UK identity is something the CEO thinks can be educated – and sold.
"In my view the situation that the international society views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
