"A household based in north London is looking for an exceptional and experienced tutor to guide their smallest child on his early path to growing into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might naturally skip the phrase "first-steps" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the crucial part of this unique employment listing, as it attempts to find a teacher for a infant.
Numerous of responses have already been sent in since the unidentified family advertised their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".
In recent few weeks, the listing has attracted notice in the media, with many asking why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their hunt, explained that in spite of initial doubt, he viewed the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they appreciated the unusual character of their demand, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had by then taken hold".
But what did the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", the expert answered. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the older sibling had adopted "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family informed him they did not want the same situation to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To hire a British tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the education at the outset here is rather osmotic," said the expert.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will pick up the British traits they want to instil.
Adam said the tutor must be someone who studied at "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator must be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told Adam the chosen tutor should preferably also have knowledge of or interest in riding, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Furthermore though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in achievement and provide access.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he notes.
However, notwithstanding all this guidance in "English culture", would the child pick up alleged cultural bias from the globally influenced family he resides with anyway?
"Certainly", replied the CEO. "The parents know this may not work, but they've just taken the view of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as early as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Impractical
A number of in the education sector who share similar concerns.
An education leader, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert noted that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the time of seven, and had been brought up knowing and living two backgrounds. He continued to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that one individual can act as a living vessel of UK identity, an individual who can possibly impart the characteristics of a UK sophisticate onto a 12-month-old child, seems to me naive and impractical," he wrote.
"In my experience, engaging a typically English tutor from infancy will not necessarily produce the goal they want.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and however I have been privileged enough to live several of the situations they desire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, personal identity cannot be imposed from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something Adam believes can be educated – and marketed.
"I believe the reality that the global community views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
