"A family located in the northern part of London seeks an extraordinary and experienced tutor to support their youngest child on his early path to becoming an British gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might easily skip the wording "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
However, it could be the crucial part of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to find a teacher for a one-year-old.
Many of responses have already been received since the anonymous family advertised their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has received interest throughout the media, with numerous wondering why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, chief executive of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their search, stated that notwithstanding early scepticism, he considered the plan "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical character of their demand, and how immature their son is.
However, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural bias had by then set in".
What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam answered. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had adopted "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family told Adam they wished to avoid the same situation to repeat itself with their younger child.
The plan: To engage a English tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the learning at the beginning here is kind of absorbed naturally," said the CEO.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will adopt the British traits they want to cultivate.
The consultant explained the tutor needed to be someone who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Money No Object
The family explained to Adam the chosen tutor should preferably also have knowledge of or passion in riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he said the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will bring about success and create opportunities.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he adds.
Yet, despite all this guidance in "English culture", could the child pick up what is termed cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he is raised by anyway?
"Yes", answered the CEO. "The family understand this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the tutoring industry who share those concerns.
An education leader, chief executive of Blue Education, who provides personal educators, commented that "the development of embracing two identities, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
Peter wrote that he had moved from Asia to the UK at the period of 7 years old, and had been brought up experiencing and embodying two backgrounds. He progressed to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that an individual can function as a embodiment of English culture, someone who can in some way impart the characteristics of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and impractical," he stated.
"In my experience, having a quintessentially UK tutor from infancy will will not necessarily produce the goal they want.
"I wasn't provided with such a figure, and yet I have been lucky enough to enjoy many of the experiences they hope for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, self-identity should not be dictated from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, UK identity is something the CEO hopes can be instructed – and sold.
"In my view the situation that the global community views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
