"A family based in North London wants to find an exceptional and skilled instructor to guide their youngest child on his initial journey to turning into an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might naturally overlook the term "first-steps" as just a turn of phrase.
But, it could be the most important aspect of this distinctive employment listing, as it attempts to hire a tutor for a infant.
Numerous of submissions have now been submitted since the anonymous family advertised their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the post has gained interest throughout the media, with many asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their hunt, explained that in spite of first skepticism, he considered the plan "far sighted", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they appreciated the unusual nature of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already taken hold".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam answered. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He explained the older sibling had absorbed "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to him they did not want the same situation to recur with their infant.
The intention: To hire a UK tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the education at the outset here is somewhat osmotic," said the CEO.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are hoping the child will adopt the British traits they want to impart.
Adam said the tutor had to be somebody who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to Adam the chosen tutor should preferably also have familiarity of or passion in riding, skiing, creative fields and musical activities so as to influence the child in a diverse set of interests.
Additionally though, he said the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a range of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son become a "English gentleman" will bring about success and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he notes.
However, notwithstanding all this instruction in "English culture", could the child adopt alleged cultural influence from the multicultural family he lives with in any case?
"Yes", answered the CEO. "The family understand this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Impractical
There are some in the tutoring industry who express similar concerns.
Peter Cui, head and founder of Blue Education, who supplies individual instructors, stated that "the journey of adopting dual cultures, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
Peter noted that he had relocated from China to the United Kingdom at the time of seven, and had been brought up experiencing and embodying both cultures. He went on to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that an individual can function as a embodiment of UK identity, a person who can somehow transfer the characteristics of a British gentleman onto a 12-month-old child, seems to me idealistic and impractical," he commented.
"In my experience, having a quintessentially British tutor from babyhood will does not instantly create the goal they hope for.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to enjoy numerous of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, cultural identity should not be imposed from the outside; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, English culture is something the expert hopes can be educated – and commercialized.
"In my view the fact that the world regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
