"A household based in North London seeks an remarkable and skilled tutor to support their smallest child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might readily overlook the term "first-steps" as just an expression.
Yet, it could be the crucial part of this unique employment listing, as it attempts to recruit a mentor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of responses have now been submitted since the anonymous family posted their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has attracted interest in the press, with many questioning why?
Innovative Idea
The CEO, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their quest, explained that in spite of first skepticism, he viewed the plan "visionary", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he said they recognized the unusual character of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
However, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural influence had by then taken hold".
What exactly does the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", he replied. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the elder child had picked up "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family explained to Adam they wished to avoid this pattern to happen again with their new baby.
The intention: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the development at the beginning here is kind of acquired indirectly," said Adam.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will adopt the British traits they wish to cultivate.
The consultant explained the tutor had to be somebody who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator 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 successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
More than that though, he said the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son grow into a "English gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and provide access.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he notes.
However, notwithstanding all this instruction in "UK identity", would the child absorb alleged cultural influence from the international family he resides with regardless?
"Certainly", replied Adam. "The family realize this could fail, but they've just taken the view of, 'we should try and we should start as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the private teaching field who express these doubts.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who also offer individual instructors, stated that "the development of becoming bicultural, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
He wrote that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the age of childhood, and had been educated understanding and living both cultures. He went on to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that one individual can serve as a embodiment of UK identity, someone who can possibly transfer the qualities of a British gentleman onto a infant child, appears idealistic and unfeasible," he commented.
"In my experience, employing a distinctly British tutor from infancy will does not necessarily achieve the result they want.
"I did not have such a tutor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to live several of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, personal identity cannot be dictated from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, Britishness is something Adam believes can be educated – and sold.
"I think the situation that the world views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
