Educating a Toddler to Become an 'English Gentleman' – Does It Justify the Money?
"A household residing in North London seeks an remarkable and experienced instructor to support their youngest child on his early path to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily skip the term "beginning" as simple an expression.
However, it may be the most significant part of this distinctive job advert, as it aims to find a teacher for a one-year-old.
Many of responses have since been sent in since the unidentified family published their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has received attention across the press, with many asking why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their quest, said that despite first doubt, he found the idea "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he said they appreciated the unusual nature of their demand, and how immature their son is.
But, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already set in".
What exactly does the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", he replied. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He stated the elder child had adopted "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family informed the consultant they wished to avoid history to repeat itself with their infant.
The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with RP, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the education at the outset here is rather acquired indirectly," said the expert.
It's through this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will pick up the English characteristics they wish to cultivate.
Adam noted the tutor needed to be an individual who went to "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Money No Object
The family informed the expert the selected educator should preferably also have familiarity of or passion in horse riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to shape the child in a diverse set of interests.
More than that though, he said the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son grow into a "English gentleman" will lead to achievement and provide access.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he adds.
But, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "UK identity", would the child adopt alleged cultural bias from the multicultural family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", said the CEO. "The family realize this may not work, but they've just taken the view of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as quickly as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he explained.
Impractical
Several in the education sector who have these concerns.
Another CEO, chief executive of a tutoring service, who also offer personal educators, stated that "the process of becoming bicultural, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
Peter noted that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the period of 7 years old, and had been educated knowing and living both cultures. He continued to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that one individual can act as a embodiment of Britishness, a person who can somehow transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman to a one-year-old child, seems to me naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"In my experience, engaging a typically English tutor from infancy will will not automatically create the result they hope for.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to enjoy several of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The reality is, cultural identity cannot be dictated from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, English culture is something the expert thinks can be educated – and commercialized.
"In my view the situation that the global community regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating