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"Parents based in north London wants to find an exceptional and skilled educator to assist their most junior child on his initial journey to turning into an English gentleman."

Looking at this post, you might easily skip the wording "initial stages" as just a turn of phrase.

Yet, it might be the crucial aspect of this unusual position posting, as it attempts to find a teacher for a one-year-old.

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

During the past few weeks, the post has gained attention throughout the news, with numerous questioning why?

Progressive Approach

Adam Caller, head and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their search, stated that in spite of first skepticism, he viewed the plan "far sighted", and "innovative".

When he met the family, he noted they understood the unconventional nature of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.

However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already become established".

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

It's "all-encompassing", he responded. "The manner you eat, how you speak".

He stated the elder child had adopted "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family explained to the consultant they wished to avoid the same situation to recur with their younger child.

The strategy: To bring in a British tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to shape the baby from the very start.

Osmotic Learning

"Much of the education at the outset here is rather acquired indirectly," stated the expert.

It's through this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they want to instil.

He explained the tutor must be an individual who went to "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".

"The tutor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he added.

Money No Object

The family told the expert the chosen tutor should preferably also have familiarity of or passion in riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of passions.

Furthermore though, he stated the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a range 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 perspective, guiding their son grow into a "British gentleman" will lead to accomplishment and open doors.

"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he comments.

Yet, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "Britishness", could the child pick up alleged cultural bias from the globally influenced family he is raised by anyway?

"Certainly", answered Adam. "They realize this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he said.

Impractical

There are some in the education sector who express those doubts.

Another CEO, head and founder of a tutoring service, who supplies personal educators, wrote that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not designed."

The expert noted that he had relocated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the age of 7 years old, and had been raised experiencing and practicing both cultures. He went on to learn at Cambridge University.

"The notion that an individual can act as a representation of English culture, an individual who can somehow transplant the qualities of a English gentleman upon a one-year-old child, appears naive and unrealistic," he wrote.

"In my experience, engaging a distinctly British tutor from early childhood will not instantly create the goal they desire.

"I never had that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to enjoy many of the situations they hope for their son."

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

Buying Britishness

Naturally, Britishness is something the expert hopes can be instructed – and sold.

"In my view the situation that the world views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating