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"A family residing in north London is looking for an exceptional and experienced educator to assist their most junior child on his first steps to turning into an English gentleman."

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

However, it may be the crucial element of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to hire a mentor for a one-year-old.

Many of responses have since been sent in since the anonymous family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".

During the past few weeks, the advert has received notice across the press, with numerous wondering why?

Forward-Thinking Method

A tutoring expert, head and founder of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their hunt, stated that notwithstanding early skepticism, he found the concept "visionary", and "progressive".

When he consulted the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical aspect of their requirement, and how young their son is.

However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already taken hold".

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

It's "all-encompassing", he replied. "How you eat, how you speak".

He stated the elder child had absorbed "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family told him they did not want this pattern to recur with their new baby.

The strategy: To hire a British tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.

Osmotic Learning

"Much of the learning at the start here is rather acquired indirectly," stated the CEO.

It's via this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will acquire the English characteristics they want to cultivate.

The consultant noted the tutor had to be someone who went to "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".

"The tutor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they may not realize they're doing, simply by nature," he said.

Expense Not a Factor

The family informed him the chosen tutor should ideally also have understanding of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to inspire the child in a wide range of interests.

Furthermore though, he stated the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a range of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".

In the family's perspective, assisting their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and open doors.

"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he comments.

However, despite all this tutelage in "English culture", could the child pick up what is termed cultural influence from the international family he is raised by regardless?

"Certainly", answered the CEO. "They understand this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he explained.

Impractical

Several in the education sector who have these concerns.

An education leader, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, stated that "the journey of embracing two identities, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."

The expert noted that he had moved from Asia to the UK at the age of childhood, and had been brought up understanding and living both cultures. He continued to study at Cambridge University.

"The idea that one individual can act as a living vessel of English culture, someone who can possibly transplant the qualities of a British gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, seems to me optimistic and unfeasible," he stated.

"Based on my background, engaging a distinctly British tutor from infancy will will not automatically achieve the result they hope for.

"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to enjoy many of the experiences they hope for their son."

He stated: "The reality is, self-identity can not be imposed from the outside; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."

Buying Britishness

Certainly, English culture is something the expert believes can be educated – and commercialized.

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