"Parents based in north London is looking for an remarkable and experienced tutor to assist their most junior child on his early path to becoming an British gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might easily miss the phrase "first-steps" as mere a turn of phrase.
Yet, it might be the most important element of this distinctive position posting, as it seeks to hire a teacher for a infant.
Hundreds of applications have now been received since the unnamed family advertised their request for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the listing has gained attention throughout the press, with numerous asking why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, head and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their search, said that notwithstanding initial doubt, he viewed the concept "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he noted they appreciated the atypical character of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural influence had by then taken hold".
What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", he answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had adopted "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent this pattern to happen again with their younger child.
The intention: To bring in a British tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the learning at the start here is somewhat absorbed naturally," stated Adam.
It's through this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will pick up the English characteristics they aim to impart.
Adam explained the tutor must be an individual who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Money No Object
The family informed Adam the successful candidate should preferably also have knowledge of or passion in riding, skiing, the arts and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Additionally though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son become a "English gentleman" will bring about success and provide access.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he comments.
Yet, in spite of all this tutelage in "Britishness", could the child pick up alleged cultural bias from the globally influenced family he resides with anyway?
"Absolutely", said Adam. "The family realize this could fail, but they've just taken the view of, 'we should try and we should start as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he explained.
Impractical
Several in the education sector who express those reservations.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who also offer private tutors, commented that "the development of embracing two identities, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the UK at the time of seven, and had been educated experiencing and living two backgrounds. He progressed to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The notion that one individual can serve as a living vessel of Britishness, an individual who can somehow transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman onto a one-year-old child, strikes me as idealistic and impractical," he wrote.
"Based on my background, engaging a typically English tutor from early childhood will not instantly create the result they want.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and yet I have been lucky enough to experience several of the situations they desire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, personal identity can not be forced from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, UK identity is something Adam thinks can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I believe the fact that the global community regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
