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"A family residing in North London is looking for an remarkable and skilled educator to support their most junior child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."

When reading this advertisement, you might naturally miss the term "first-steps" as just figurative language.

However, it may be the most important part of this unique employment listing, as it attempts to find a teacher for a one-year-old.

Numerous of applications have since been submitted since the anonymous family advertised their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".

In recent few weeks, the post has received attention in the press, with several asking why?

Progressive Approach

A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their hunt, said that in spite of initial skepticism, he found the plan "visionary", and "progressive".

When he met the family, he mentioned they understood the atypical nature of their demand, and how young their son is.

Nevertheless, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural bias had by then become established".

But what does the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?

It's "everything", he responded. "The manner you eat, how you speak".

He stated the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family informed him they wished to avoid the same situation to happen again with their younger child.

The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from day one.

Osmotic Learning

"Much of the development at the outset here is kind of absorbed naturally," stated Adam.

It's through this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will pick up the British traits they aim to impart.

The consultant explained the tutor had to be somebody who went to "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".

"The instructor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he commented.

Expense Not a Factor

The family explained to him the chosen tutor should preferably also have familiarity of or passion in horse riding, winter sports, the arts and musical activities so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.

Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".

In the family's minds, helping their son grow into a "English gentleman" will result in success and create opportunities.

"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he notes.

However, despite all this guidance in "Britishness", could the child absorb what is termed cultural leaning from the international family he lives with regardless?

"Absolutely", replied he. "The parents realize this may not work, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'we should try and we should start as early as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he said.

Impractical

A number of in the tutoring industry who express these doubts.

Peter Cui, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who also offer individual instructors, stated that "the process of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."

Peter wrote that he had relocated from Asia to the UK at the age of seven, and had been educated understanding and practicing dual heritages. He went on to learn at a prestigious UK institution.

"The notion that a single person can function as a embodiment of English culture, a person who can in some way impart the attributes of a English gentleman to a one-year-old child, seems to me idealistic and unrealistic," he commented.

"Based on my background, employing a typically UK tutor from infancy will does not automatically produce the outcome they desire.

"I wasn't provided with such a figure, and yet I have been lucky enough to enjoy many of the situations they desire for their son."

He stated: "The truth is, self-identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must come from within."

Purchasing UK Culture

Of course, English culture is something Adam thinks can be taught – and marketed.

"I believe the situation that the world regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating