"Parents located in the northern part of London seeks an extraordinary and skilled instructor to support their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might readily miss the wording "beginning" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the most important aspect of this unique employment listing, as it seeks to find a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of submissions have since been submitted since the anonymous family advertised their request for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has gained notice in the media, with numerous wondering why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, head and founder of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their quest, said that in spite of first skepticism, he found the plan "visionary", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he mentioned they recognized the unconventional aspect of their demand, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already taken hold".
But what does the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", he responded. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He stated the elder child had adopted "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family informed Adam they wished to avoid history to happen again with their new baby.
The strategy: To bring in a British tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the development at the outset here is somewhat osmotic," stated the CEO.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will acquire the English characteristics they want to cultivate.
Adam said 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 must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Money No Object
The family told him the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in horse riding, alpine skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a wide range of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son grow into a "English gentleman" will lead to success and provide access.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he adds.
But, despite all this guidance in "UK identity", might the child pick up so-called cultural bias from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Absolutely", replied Adam. "The parents know this could fail, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as early as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the private teaching field who have those doubts.
Peter Cui, chief executive of Blue Education, who provides private tutors, stated that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
Peter noted that he had relocated from Asia to the Britain at the period of seven, and had been educated understanding and living two backgrounds. He continued to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that an individual can act as a living vessel of English culture, a person who can possibly impart the characteristics of a UK sophisticate to a 12-month-old child, appears optimistic and unfeasible," he stated.
"Based on my background, employing a typically UK tutor from babyhood will does not automatically produce the goal they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to experience numerous of the experiences they desire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be dictated from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Of course, English culture is something Adam hopes can be educated – and sold.
"I think the situation that the international society holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
