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"A family based in the northern part of London wants to find an extraordinary and skilled educator to guide their smallest child on his early path to turning into an English gentleman."

When reading this post, you might naturally miss the term "initial stages" as mere figurative language.

However, it may be the most important element of this unique job advert, as it aims to recruit a teacher for a 12-month-old.

Many of applications have since been received since the anonymous family advertised their call for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "someone very special".

Over the last few weeks, the advert has attracted notice throughout the media, with many questioning why?

Forward-Thinking Method

A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their quest, stated that despite early skepticism, he considered the plan "far sighted", and "advanced".

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

However, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already become established".

But what did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?

It's "comprehensive", Adam replied. "The way you eat, the way you speak".

He stated the elder child had picked up "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family told Adam they did not want this pattern to recur with their infant.

The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from day one.

Subtle Influence

"Much of the learning at the outset here is somewhat acquired indirectly," stated the expert.

It's by means of this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will adopt the British traits they want to instil.

Adam explained the tutor had to be somebody who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".

"The instructor must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he commented.

Expense Not a Factor

The family informed him the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, winter sports, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a diverse set of passions.

Additionally though, he said the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a range of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".

In the family's perspective, assisting their son grow into a "UK sophisticate" will lead to accomplishment and provide access.

"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he adds.

But, in spite of all this instruction in "English culture", could the child pick up alleged cultural influence from the international family he lives with regardless?

"Absolutely", replied he. "They understand this may not work, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'we should try and we should start as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he explained.

Idealistic and Unrealistic

A number of in the education sector who have these doubts.

Another CEO, chief executive of a tutoring service, who also offer private tutors, wrote that "the process of becoming bicultural, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."

Peter explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the UK at the time of 7 years old, and had been brought up understanding and living both cultures. He went on to learn at a prestigious UK institution.

"The concept that one individual can act as a representation of UK identity, an individual who can somehow transplant the qualities of a British gentleman to a 12-month-old child, appears optimistic and impractical," he commented.

"In my experience, having a distinctly English tutor from infancy will not necessarily create the result they want.

"I did not have such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to live many of the situations they desire for their son."

He stated: "The fact is, personal identity should not be dictated from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."

Acquiring Englishness

Of course, UK identity is something the CEO thinks can be instructed – and sold.

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