"A family based in North London seeks an extraordinary and skilled educator to support their most junior child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might readily overlook the wording "first-steps" as just an expression.
But, it may be the most important part of this unusual position posting, as it seeks to hire a tutor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of submissions have now been sent in since the unidentified family published their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the post has received interest across the press, with several wondering why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their search, said that despite first scepticism, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he noted they appreciated the atypical character of their request, and how immature their son is.
However, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already taken hold".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", he replied. "The way you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the older sibling had picked up "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family told Adam they did not want history to recur with their infant.
The strategy: To engage a UK tutor, who must speak with RP, to shape the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the learning at the beginning here is rather acquired indirectly," stated the CEO.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will adopt the UK customs they wish to impart.
He explained the tutor must be somebody who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to Adam the successful candidate should preferably also have understanding of or enthusiasm in riding, winter sports, creative fields and musical activities so as to shape the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a range of classes 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, guiding their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about success and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he comments.
But, in spite of all this instruction in "English culture", could the child pick up alleged cultural leaning from the multicultural family he resides with anyway?
"Absolutely", answered Adam. "The parents know this might not succeed, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'we should try and let's go as quickly as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the private teaching field who have similar doubts.
Another CEO, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, stated that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
He wrote that he had relocated from Asia to the United Kingdom at the time of seven, and had been brought up knowing and living both cultures. He continued to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The concept that an individual can act as a living vessel of Britishness, a person who can possibly transplant the characteristics of a British gentleman to a infant child, appears idealistic and impractical," he commented.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially British tutor from babyhood will will not instantly achieve the outcome they want.
"I did not have such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to experience several of the experiences they desire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, cultural identity cannot be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, English culture is something the expert hopes can be taught – and sold.
"I think the reality that the global community regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
