"A family based in north London wants to find an exceptional and qualified instructor to guide their most junior child on his initial journey to turning into an British gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily skip the term "first-steps" as just an expression.
However, it may be the crucial aspect of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to recruit a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Many of responses have now been submitted since the unnamed family advertised their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the advert has attracted attention in the news, with many asking why?
Innovative Idea
The CEO, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their hunt, said that despite early scepticism, he considered the plan "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he said they appreciated the unusual character of their requirement, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had by then become established".
What exactly did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he responded. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He explained the older sibling had absorbed "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family told the consultant they hoped to prevent this pattern to happen again with their infant.
The strategy: To engage a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the development at the start here is kind of absorbed naturally," explained the CEO.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will adopt the UK customs they wish to impart.
The consultant explained the tutor must be someone who went to "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, simply by nature," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed him the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in riding, alpine skiing, the arts and musical activities so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
Additionally though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a range of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in achievement and create opportunities.
"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he comments.
But, notwithstanding all this instruction in "English culture", could the child absorb so-called cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he is raised by anyway?
"Certainly", replied he. "The family realize this could fail, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the price of it is not relevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who share similar reservations.
An education leader, chief executive of a tutoring service, who supplies individual instructors, wrote that "the process of becoming bicultural, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
Peter explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the time of 7 years old, and had been brought up understanding and living both cultures. He continued to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that an individual can serve as a living vessel of English culture, an individual who can possibly transfer the characteristics of a British gentleman onto a 12-month-old child, appears naive and unrealistic," he stated.
"From my perspective, engaging a distinctly English tutor from early childhood will will not necessarily create the result they want.
"I never had such a figure, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy several of the situations they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, cultural identity should not be imposed from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, English culture is something the CEO believes can be educated – and sold.
"In my view the fact that the international society regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
