"A household residing in North London seeks an extraordinary and experienced instructor to support their youngest child on his initial journey to growing into an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily skip the phrase "first-steps" as mere figurative language.
However, it may be the most important element of this unusual job advert, as it aims to hire a teacher for a infant.
Hundreds of responses have already been received since the unidentified family posted their call for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the post has attracted interest across the news, with several questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their hunt, stated that notwithstanding initial scepticism, he considered the idea "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they appreciated the atypical nature of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
However, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural bias had by then taken hold".
What precisely did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had absorbed "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to the consultant they hoped to prevent this pattern to recur with their younger child.
The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the development at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," said Adam.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will pick up the English characteristics they aim to impart.
He said the tutor needed to be somebody who attended "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Money No Object
The family explained to the expert the successful candidate should preferably also have understanding of or passion in riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to inspire 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 range of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son develop into a "English gentleman" will lead to success and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he adds.
But, notwithstanding all this guidance in "English culture", would the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the multicultural family he lives with regardless?
"Certainly", replied the CEO. "The family know this may not work, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the private teaching field who share those doubts.
An education leader, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies private tutors, stated that "the process of embracing two identities, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the period of seven, and had been brought up knowing and practicing dual heritages. He went on to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that a single person can serve as a embodiment of English culture, a person who can possibly transfer the qualities of a English gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, appears optimistic and unrealistic," he stated.
"In my experience, engaging a distinctly UK tutor from babyhood will will not instantly produce the goal they desire.
"I did not have such a tutor, and yet I have been privileged enough to live many of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, personal identity cannot be dictated from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, Britishness is something Adam hopes can be educated – and marketed.
"I believe the reality that the global community holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
