"A family residing in North London seeks an extraordinary and qualified educator to support their most junior child on his early path to becoming an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might easily miss the term "beginning" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it might be the crucial aspect of this distinctive employment listing, as it aims to find a tutor for a one-year-old.
Many of applications have now been submitted since the unidentified family published their search for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has received attention across the press, with many asking why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their hunt, said that in spite of initial doubt, he found the concept "visionary", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual aspect of their request, and how early in age their son is.
However, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already taken hold".
What exactly did the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert replied. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He explained the firstborn had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family explained to the consultant they wished to avoid history to happen again with their younger child.
The intention: To hire a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the education at the beginning here is kind of absorbed naturally," said the expert.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will pick up the British traits they aim to impart.
Adam said the tutor had to be somebody who went to "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told him the successful candidate should preferably also have understanding of or passion in horse riding, winter sports, the arts and musical activities so as to shape the child in a diverse set of passions.
Additionally though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son grow into a "English gentleman" will result in accomplishment and provide access.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he comments.
Yet, despite all this guidance in "Britishness", could the child pick up so-called cultural bias from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Yes", answered he. "The parents realize this may not work, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the education sector who express similar concerns.
Another CEO, head and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer personal educators, commented that "the process of becoming bicultural, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
Peter noted that he had relocated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the time of childhood, and had been raised knowing and practicing two backgrounds. He went on to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The idea that one individual can serve as a representation of UK identity, an individual who can in some way impart the attributes of a UK sophisticate onto a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"In my experience, having a distinctly British tutor from infancy will not necessarily achieve the outcome they hope for.
"I did not have such a tutor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to live many of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He added: "The truth is, self-identity should not be imposed from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Of course, Britishness is something the CEO thinks can be educated – and marketed.
"I believe the reality that the global community views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
