🔗 Share this article

"Parents based in the northern part of London seeks an extraordinary and experienced tutor to guide their smallest child on his early path to turning into an English gentleman."

When reading this post, you might naturally skip the wording "first-steps" as mere a turn of phrase.

But, it might be the most important element of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to recruit a mentor for a one-year-old.

Many of responses have since been submitted since the unidentified family posted their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".

Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted interest in the media, with many asking why?

Innovative Idea

A tutoring expert, chief executive of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their hunt, said that in spite of first skepticism, he found the idea "far sighted", and "innovative".

When he met the family, he noted they understood the atypical character of their requirement, and how young their son is.

Nevertheless, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already become established".

What exactly did the family indicate by "cultural bias"?

It's "everything", Adam responded. "How you eat, the manner you speak".

He stated the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family told the consultant they hoped to prevent the same situation to repeat itself with their infant.

The plan: To engage a UK tutor, who must speak with RP, to shape the baby from day one.

Osmotic Learning

"Much of the learning at the start here is kind of absorbed naturally," stated the CEO.

It's through this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will adopt the English characteristics they aim to instil.

The consultant noted the tutor must be someone who studied at "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family hope to send their son to".

"The tutor must be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, effortlessly," he said.

Expense Not a Factor

The family informed the expert the successful candidate should preferably also have familiarity of or interest in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, creative fields and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.

Furthermore though, he explained the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".

In the family's view, helping their son become a "English gentleman" will result in success and provide access.

"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he notes.

However, in spite of all this instruction in "Britishness", might the child adopt what is termed cultural bias from the multicultural family he is raised by in any case?

"Yes", replied he. "The parents understand this may not work, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as early as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he stated.

Overly Optimistic

There are some in the tutoring industry who have these concerns.

Another CEO, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, wrote that "the development of becoming bicultural, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."

He wrote that he had moved from China to the UK at the period of seven, and had been educated knowing and practicing both cultures. He went on to be educated at Cambridge University.

"The notion that a single person can act as a representation of UK identity, someone who can in some way transplant the attributes of a English gentleman to a infant child, strikes me as optimistic and unrealistic," he commented.

"From my perspective, having a typically British tutor from infancy will not instantly achieve the result they desire.

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

He stated: "The reality is, personal identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."

Acquiring Englishness

Certainly, Britishness is something the CEO thinks can be taught – and marketed.

"I think the situation that the international society holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating