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"Parents residing in north London wants to find an exceptional and qualified tutor to assist their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."

Looking at this post, you might easily overlook the phrase "first-steps" as just an expression.

But, it may be the most significant element of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to hire a teacher for a infant.

Numerous of applications have now been received since the anonymous family published their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".

During the past few weeks, the post has received attention in the news, with numerous asking why?

Forward-Thinking Method

Adam Caller, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their hunt, stated that notwithstanding initial skepticism, he found the idea "forward-looking", and "innovative".

When he met the family, he noted they understood the atypical character of their request, and how young their son is.

However, they explained that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural influence had by then set in".

What precisely did the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?

It's "comprehensive", Adam answered. "How you eat, how you speak".

He said the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they wished to avoid the same situation to repeat itself with their younger child.

The plan: To engage a English tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from the very start.

Osmotic Learning

"A lot of the education at the start here is rather absorbed naturally," explained the CEO.

It's via this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they wish to instil.

The consultant noted the tutor had to be someone who studied at "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".

"The tutor must be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he commented.

Money No Object

The family told him the selected educator should preferably also have understanding of or enthusiasm in riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.

More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a range of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an tool by the time they are around three years old".

In the family's minds, guiding their son develop into a "English gentleman" will lead to success and provide access.

"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he comments.

Yet, despite all this tutelage in "English culture", could the child pick up so-called cultural bias from the international family he lives with anyway?

"Absolutely", replied he. "The parents realize this could fail, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as quickly as we can', because the price of it is not relevant," he stated.

Idealistic and Unrealistic

There are some in the private teaching field who have those reservations.

An education leader, chief executive of a tutoring service, who supplies personal educators, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."

He noted that he had emigrated from China to the UK at the age of seven, and had been educated understanding and embodying both cultures. He progressed to learn at Cambridge University.

"The idea that a single person can act as a living vessel of UK identity, someone who can somehow transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate to a 12-month-old child, seems to me optimistic and unfeasible," he wrote.

"From my perspective, having a distinctly UK tutor from early childhood will will not instantly achieve the result they hope for.

"I did not have such a figure, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy several of the experiences they desire for their son."

He continued: "The fact is, self-identity can not be dictated from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."

Purchasing UK Culture

Naturally, English culture is something Adam thinks can be instructed – and commercialized.

"I think the reality that the world views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating