"A family residing in North London wants to find an exceptional and qualified educator to support their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might easily miss the wording "first-steps" as just figurative language.
However, it could be the most important element of this unusual position posting, as it seeks to find a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of applications have since been submitted since the unidentified family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the post has gained interest across the news, with several asking why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their quest, stated that in spite of early doubt, he considered the concept "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he said they recognized the unconventional character of their requirement, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural bias had by then taken hold".
What precisely did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had picked up "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family informed the consultant they hoped to prevent history to happen again with their younger child.
The strategy: To engage a UK tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the education at the outset here is somewhat acquired indirectly," said the expert.
It's through this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will acquire the British traits they want to instil.
Adam noted the tutor needed to be someone who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, the arts and music so as to shape the child in a diverse set of passions.
Additionally though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a range of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, guiding their son develop into a "English gentleman" will lead to success and open doors.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he notes.
But, in spite of all this tutelage in "Britishness", might the child pick up what is termed cultural bias from the multicultural family he lives with in any case?
"Certainly", replied Adam. "They know this could fail, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'we should try and let's go as quickly as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the education sector who express those concerns.
Another CEO, chief executive of Blue Education, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the development of embracing two identities, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert noted that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been raised experiencing and living dual heritages. He went on to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that one individual can function as a living vessel of Britishness, someone who can possibly transplant the qualities of a UK sophisticate onto a 12-month-old child, strikes me as idealistic and unfeasible," he commented.
"From my perspective, having a distinctly British tutor from babyhood will does not automatically produce the outcome they hope for.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to live numerous of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He added: "The reality is, self-identity can not be dictated from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the expert believes can be educated – and marketed.
"I think the fact that the international society views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
