"Parents located in North London is looking for an remarkable and skilled instructor to assist their youngest child on his initial journey to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might readily skip the term "first-steps" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it may be the crucial element of this unusual job advert, as it attempts to recruit a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of applications have now been sent in since the unnamed family published their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the post has gained interest across the media, with several asking why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their hunt, explained that despite early doubt, he found the concept "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual nature of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already taken hold".
But what did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam responded. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the older sibling had adopted "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family informed the consultant they hoped to prevent the same situation to recur with their new baby.
The intention: To bring in a UK tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the learning at the beginning here is kind of acquired indirectly," explained Adam.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will adopt the UK customs they want to instil.
He noted the tutor had to be someone who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed Adam the chosen tutor should preferably also have familiarity of or interest in horse riding, skiing, creative fields and music so as to inspire the child in a diverse set of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a range of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in success and open doors.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he adds.
However, despite all this instruction in "Britishness", might the child pick up so-called cultural influence from the globally influenced family he lives with anyway?
"Yes", replied he. "The family know this could fail, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the tutoring industry who have these doubts.
Another CEO, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
He noted that he had emigrated from Asia to the United Kingdom at the period of childhood, and had been brought up experiencing and practicing two backgrounds. He continued to learn at Cambridge University.
"The concept that one individual can serve as a living vessel of English culture, a person who can somehow transplant the characteristics of a British gentleman upon a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and unfeasible," he commented.
"In my experience, having a distinctly British tutor from babyhood will not necessarily produce the goal they hope for.
"I did not have such a tutor, and however I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the situations they hope for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, personal identity cannot be forced from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, English culture is something Adam believes can be instructed – and marketed.
"In my view the situation that the global community regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
