"Parents located in the northern part of London is looking for an extraordinary and qualified instructor to support their youngest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might naturally skip the term "first-steps" as mere figurative language.
However, it could be the crucial element of this distinctive job advert, as it attempts to recruit a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of responses have since been submitted since the anonymous family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the post has attracted notice across the news, with several wondering why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that despite first doubt, he found the idea "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he said they understood the unusual nature of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
But, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had by then become established".
But what did the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", he replied. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the older sibling had picked up "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family explained to Adam they did not want the same situation to happen again with their infant.
The strategy: To engage a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," explained the expert.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will acquire the UK customs they aim to cultivate.
The consultant explained the tutor had to be an individual who went to "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Money No Object
The family explained to Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in horse riding, skiing, the arts and music so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
More than that though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a range 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 perspective, helping their son become a "British gentleman" will lead to accomplishment and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he comments.
Yet, despite all this instruction in "UK identity", would the child adopt what is termed cultural leaning from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Absolutely", said he. "They realize this may not work, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as soon as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the private teaching field who express similar reservations.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who also offer personal educators, wrote that "the process of becoming bicultural, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
Peter explained that he had moved from the Far East to the Britain at the age of childhood, and had been raised experiencing and living two backgrounds. He progressed to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that one individual can act as a living vessel of Britishness, an individual who can in some way transfer the characteristics of a English gentleman onto a 12-month-old child, appears optimistic and unfeasible," he commented.
"In my experience, having a quintessentially British tutor from babyhood will does not instantly create the outcome they want.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to live several of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, cultural identity can not be forced from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, UK identity is something Adam believes can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I think the reality that the global community holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
