"A family located in north London wants to find an exceptional and skilled instructor to assist their smallest child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might naturally overlook the wording "first-steps" as just figurative language.
But, it may be the crucial element of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to find a mentor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of responses have already been received since the unidentified family published their request for the highly paid tutor, who must be "an exceptional individual".
During the past few weeks, the listing has attracted notice in the press, with several asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their hunt, stated that despite initial scepticism, he found the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical character of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
Nevertheless, 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 stage "cultural conditioning had already taken hold".
What exactly did the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He stated the older sibling had picked up "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family told Adam they hoped to prevent history to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To engage a English tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is somewhat acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will acquire the English characteristics they aim to instil.
Adam noted the tutor needed to be someone who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they don't even know 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 interest in horse riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to inspire the child in a wide range of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he adds.
But, in spite of all this tutelage in "Britishness", might the child pick up alleged cultural bias from the international family he resides with anyway?
"Yes", said he. "They know this could fail, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'we should try and we should start as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he stated.
Impractical
Several in the private teaching field who have those concerns.
Peter Cui, chief executive of a tutoring service, who also offer individual instructors, stated that "the development of embracing two identities, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
He wrote that he had emigrated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the time of childhood, and had been brought up knowing and practicing dual heritages. He progressed to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that a single person can function as a embodiment of English culture, an individual who can somehow impart the qualities of a English gentleman onto a infant child, strikes me as naive and unrealistic," he commented.
"From my perspective, engaging a distinctly British tutor from early childhood will not necessarily create the result they hope for.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to enjoy many of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, self-identity can not be imposed from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, UK identity is something the expert hopes can be instructed – and marketed.
"In my view the situation that the world holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
