"A family residing in north London wants to find an extraordinary and experienced tutor to assist their youngest child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily miss the term "first-steps" as mere figurative language.
But, it could be the crucial part of this unusual position posting, as it aims to recruit a tutor for a infant.
Hundreds of submissions have now been submitted since the unidentified family posted their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has attracted interest throughout the media, with numerous wondering why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their hunt, explained that despite first doubt, he considered the concept "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he noted they appreciated the unconventional character of their request, and how immature their son is.
But, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already set in".
But what did the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam replied. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He said the older sibling had picked up "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family told Adam they wished to avoid history to recur with their younger child.
The intention: To bring in a UK tutor, who should speak with RP, to shape the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the education at the beginning here is somewhat osmotic," said Adam.
It's via this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will adopt the English characteristics they wish to instil.
He noted the tutor had to be somebody who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to Adam the chosen tutor should preferably also have familiarity of or passion in horse riding, winter sports, creative fields and musical activities so as to shape the child in a diverse set of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son develop into a "British gentleman" will result in achievement and provide access.
"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he comments.
However, despite all this instruction in "Britishness", might the child absorb what is termed cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", answered Adam. "The parents realize this may not work, but they've just taken the view of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who have similar doubts.
An education leader, head and founder of Blue Education, who also offer personal educators, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
Peter wrote that he had emigrated from the Far East to the UK at the period of childhood, and had been educated knowing and living both cultures. He progressed to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that one individual can function as a living vessel of UK identity, an individual who can possibly transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman onto a one-year-old child, seems to me idealistic and impractical," he commented.
"From my perspective, engaging a typically UK tutor from infancy will will not automatically produce the goal they want.
"I never had such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live many of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be dictated from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the CEO thinks can be instructed – and sold.
"I think the reality that the global community holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
