The Doon School

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Doon School (informally Doon ) is an independent boy-specific boarding school in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. Founded in 1935 by Satish Ranjan Das, a Kolkata lawyer, who built a school in a British public school, but was aware of India's ambitions and desires. The first headmaster was an Englishman, Arthur E. Foot, who had spent nine years as a science teacher at Eton College, England before coming to Doon, and returned to England right after India's independence. The current headmaster is Matthew Raggett, who succeeded Peter McLaughlin in 2016, and is the fourth English headmaster in Doon history. She is a member of the Principal and Principal Conference, England.

School is a member of G20 Schools and Round Square group. Doon House of 500 students aged 13 to 18 years. Entry to school is based on competitive entrance exams and interviews. Every year in January and April, schools recognize 13-year-olds in grade 7 (known as D-forms) and aged 14 in grade 8 (C-shape) respectively. The Doon students take the 10th International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) exam, which replaces the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education in 2017, and then offers two pieces for the last two years: International Baccalaureate (IB) or Indian School Certificate (IS C). The school started offering IB curriculum only in 2006, before all students had to take the ISC exam in the twelfth grade.

Doon has been ranked as the best boarding school in India, including by The Times of India and The New York Times . Although the school has often been referred to as 'Eton of India' by media such as BBC, The Guardian, The Spectator, Financial Times, The Economist, The Daily Telegraph and Forbes, it is very disturbing label. Doon remains a men's school despite the constant pressure from political leaders, including former President Pratibha Patil, to become coeducational. Old boys in school are commonly known as Doscos . Although the total number of former students is relatively small (estimated at 5,000 since the establishment of the school), they include some of the most prominent politicians, government officials and business leaders in India. The most famous alumnus is former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Video The Doon School

Histori

Origins

Doon was founded by Satish Ranjan Das, a lawyer from Calcutta and a Bengal advocate general, who in 1927 became a Viceroy Executive Board member Lord Irwin on condition that he would use the prestige of this position to raise funds for a new type of school in India. He decided to name the new school "Doon", because it was in the Doon Valley. He traveled extensively in India for the purpose of collecting INR 4 million, but at the time of his death had raised only INR 1 million in cash and further INR 1 million in appointments. With that money, Das formed the Indian Public Schools' Society (IPSS), which has the goal of setting up a new public school in India that will accept students regardless of caste, faith or social status. Under IPSS, the Board of Governors oversees all Doon's affairs. Jawaharlal Nehru encouraged steps to found a school, but Mahatma Gandhi "would have nothing to do with it".

After Das's death in 1928, IPSS reached little, and in 1934 some of the original presenters started asking about the return of their money. To solve the problem, Sir Joseph Bhore, then Minister of the Lord Willingdon, became chairman of IPSS and, along with Sir Akbar Hydari as secretary, worked to acquire a former Forest Research Institute in Dehra Dun on favorable terms. Sir Frank Noyce also joined the team. Lord Halifax, then President of the Board of Education of England, presided over a selection committee nominated by Arthur E. Foot, a science teacher at Eton College, to become the first principal. On October 27, 1935, the Young King, Lord Willingdon, led the official opening of the school. Seventy boys enrolled in the first semester, and 110 others signed up for the second.

The houses at the new school were originally named after their respective housewives, but were later replaced in honor of the biggest presenter to IPSS: The Hyderabad House was named after Sir Akbar Hydari contributed INR 200,000 from Nizam from the government Hyderabad; Kashmir House, after Maharajah Hari Singh, who was then the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, promised a contribution of INR 100,000 (100,000 rupees), sent in 1935; Tata House, after Tata and Wadia Trusts promised INR 150,000, half of which was shipped in 1935; Jaipur House, after Rai Bahadur Amarnath Atal set the contribution of INR 100,000 from Durbar of Jaipur. No buildings are named after Rai Bahadur Rameshwar Nathany, since his donation of INR 100,000 was initially anonymous.

Incorporation Ethos

Arthur Foot had never visited India before accepting the principal's position, and knew little about Dehradun beyond what he learned in consultation with the atlas. He noted that it seems to be surrounded by forests and close to the mountains, and the possibility of outdoor recreation and mountain climbing seems to have influenced his decision as much as the opportunity to create a completely new school in India. Foot's first action after being offered a position is to recruit J.A.K. (John) Martyn of Harrow School as his deputy. The Doon ethos and guiding principles were determined early in life by Foot, Martyn, R.L. Holdsworth and Jack Gibson, who later became Principal of Mayo College. Although these teachers all came from very traditional British schools, they were determined to create a unique Indian public school rather than a transplanted British institution, and they soon joined in their efforts by influential Indians such as Sudhir Khastgir (teacher the first art in that school). , who had been trained earlier in Santiniketan) and Gurdial Singh, a pioneer mountaineer who taught at Doon for decades.

In an essay titled The Objects of Education published in school magazines, Foot offers a template for a complete education for boys, which includes teaching them to clearly distinguish between good and evil, forming habits choose a good one. more evil, think logically, express their thoughts and views clearly, and maintain a healthy body. In another essay, Kaki identifies milestones in the development of each student:

At the age of 14 he should learn all the usual principles of social behavior. He must know how to stand and speak with different kinds of people - to his own mother, to the mother of another, to his father, to his principals, to the servants, to Mahatma Gandhi or to the Young King, and to do this without consciousness self... At the age of fourteen, a boy should form a framework of competence in language, math skills, and social behavior. After that age he, as it were, fills the design into the framework. In short, he acquired a taste, a beautiful and a bad taste, strong and weak, good and evil... At the age of 17 must come another quality, less instinctive and requires a more mature mind : he must get the assessment capacity.

Martyn, who has been involved with Doon for decades and became second principal, recognizes the incredible German influence Kurt Hahn in the development of the school ethos. Although Martyn had never visited India before, he immediately accepted Foot's offer because of the opportunity he gave to implementing Hahn's ideas, which he had not been able to do at Harrow. Martyn acknowledged Foot's leadership in school development, but added that they both had the same idea: "I would not be as brave as he tried to eliminate punishment, but we both wanted to provide the widest possible range of creative and challenging activities... The problem , as we see, is creating an atmosphere where boys will learn the importance of the public spirit at the same time as they gain confidence and initiative. "

Headmaster

Kaki and Martyn, the first two principals at Doon, both from the British elite - Eton College and Harrow School. They were determined to model Doon in both schools, but both agreed that it should be reserved primarily for Indian boys rather than children of British expatriates. The public school jargon introduced by the principal is still in use. For example, weekly masters' meetings, beginning with Foot, called Chambers , terms taken from Eton, and evening "preparations" (PR homework dormitory equivalent to homework) are called Toye-time , a term taken from Winchester College.

Although Foot modeled Doon on Eton and Harrow (and the school was often called "Eton of India" by various press agents), he did not want Doon to be elitist. Legs once said, "our sons will join the aristocracy, but it is the aristocracy of ministry, not one of property, privilege or position." The first headmaster of India was Eric Simeon who was appointed in 1970. He comes from a military background and places great emphasis on a disciplined life. The next principal, Gulab Ramchandani, was the first alumnus to head the school. Successor Ramchandani Shomie Das, another alumnus, is the grandson of school founder Satish Ranjan Das. During his tenure, the Oberoi house was added to the original four houses.

The main emphasis of the next school principal, John Mason, is to make Doon affordable for schoolchildren; Doon did not raise the cost during his tenure. Kanti Bajpai became the third third son to become principal. He oversaw the introduction of numerous penalties, especially the "yellow card", to control the bullying explosion at Doon. Peter McLaughlin, a member of the Principal and Headmaster Conference (HMC), became the first non-Indian headmaster for nearly four decades when he was appointed in 2009. Shortly before taking his appointment he said, "We will stick to the school's creed to involve individuals in socially productive work, at the same time providing quality education. "

In June 2016 the school announced the appointment of Matthew Raggett, head of the junior high school Leipzig International School, to replace Peter McLaughlin from the end of the summer.

DS-75 celebration

The annual Founder School Day celebration is a three or four day event in the Autumn Period, usually in the last week of October. Many former students come from all over the world to celebrate the event. Security on campus is very strict, because the alumni who attend the event often include senior politicians and government officials, and the main guest is usually a very prominent person. The show included the production of British dramas followed by an orchestra concert given by members of the School's Music Society.

Doon celebrates 75th Founding Day in October 2010 with a baptized event DS-75 . Among the main guests were President Pratibha Patil of India, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck from Bhutan and Kapil Sibal, (later Union Minister for Human Resource Development). Pratibha Patil, at her address, urged the school to make Doon a joint educational institution. Rahul Gandhi, Secretary General of the National Congress of India, who studied at Doon for two years, remains away for security reasons. One of the main attractions is discussion (dubbed "Chandbagh Debate") held between alumni including Vikram Seth, Kamal Nath, Manpreet Singh Badal, Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia and retired principal Kanti Bajpai, on topic Can India lead? . It was moderated by television commentator Karan Thapar, a school alumnus.

Ashvin Kumar filmed Dazed in Doon for the celebration, using pupils for cast and crew. Most were shot in June and July during the summer holidays, and scenes requiring all students to be filmed after school reopened in August. The Doon School, however, objected to the film and its distribution, obtained a court order to delay his release and label him "defamatory". Shayan Italia, another alumni, composed and gave live performances of the song "Doscos Forever, Brothers for Life" to mark the event. On October 22, 2010, a memorial stamp depicting the main building of the school was released by the Indian Postal Service to mark the 75th Founder Day opportunity.

Maps The Doon School

Campus

The school occupies a campus covering approximately 72 acres (290,000 m ²) flanked by Chakrata Road and Mall Road in the Dehradun Cantonment area in Dehradun city, Uttarakhand, India. For the school house, IPSS acquired Chandbagh Estate in Dehradun from Forest Research Institute. Part of the plantation was once a deer park. The IPSS also acquired adjacent estate, now known as Skinner's Field, of the offspring of James Skinner. By the time the acquisition was overgrown and somewhat neglected, the most notable feature was the two former warehouses used for the elephant house. The new School of Arts and Media, located on the site of the old School of Music and inaugurated in October 2010 by Kapil Sibal, was selected for the 2010 World Architecture Education Award. South Park schools have been mentioned in the Inside Outside Magazine Annual Award for green principles and GRIHA standards on environmental compatibility.

The Chandbagh plantation is located in the green part of Dehradun and a variety of flora and fauna are found in plantations, including many rare trees dating from the Forest Research Institute. The school has over 150 tree species on its campus, and formal gardens attract a variety of birds. In 1996, a book titled Trees of Chandbagh was released which provided a full report on vegetation found on the Doon campus, known as Chandbagh.

House

Doon follows the home system. When the school opened in 1935, there were only three houses. Currently there are five main houses (Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kashmir, Tata and Oberoi) and two 'mother houses' (Kaki and Martyn, named after the former principal), where new students stay for a year before moving to one of the main houses.

Each house is managed by a housewife, who is also an active member of the teaching staff. This housekeeper is assisted by a senior boy known as the captain of the house. One senior boy served as a school captain and was assisted by a prefect from each house. Boys are assigned to the house at the time of admission and develop a great loyalty to them, because all intramural sports involve fierce competition between homes. For some alumni, inter-house rivalry continues until mid-life. Boys with even the family connections that are farthest to a particular home are always assigned to the house.

For decades, housewives have always been men, but now there are housewives too. Every housewife and housewife is assisted by a warden known as "The Dame", which provides pastoral care for students, some of which take several weeks to adjust fully to living in boarding schools, especially considering Doon's monastic lifestyle and a strict routine. Host houses and housewives are close by or physically attached to their homes to allow for strict supervision and support.

MODEL UNITED NATIONS: DOSCOS AT YALE, 2016 | The Doon School

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Academic life

The school practices a five and a half day week consisting of 40 periods (or "schools"), each 40 minutes. The school day begins with "first bell" immediately after 6:15 am. The boys have chhota haazri before doing gymnastics outdoors on the playground. There are eight classes total with a 20 minute break and lunch in between. All meals are served in the main dining room, and the boys from each table alternately act as waiters for their one table buddy.

The academic year always consists of two terms: Spring Term and Fall Period. In the early decades, the academic year followed the calendar year. This changed in the late 1970s so the Spring Term now runs from February to the end of May. New students ("D-Formers") joined Doon in early April. The Fall period lasts from August to the end of year exam in November after which the children are promoted to a new class starting in February. This internal examination is known as a "trial," while exams leading to certificates like the Indian School Certificate are known as "final".

Social work, known formally as "Social Workable Productive Work", is also a part of school life. All boys in school must complete the mandatory quota of social work hours each semester. Students and alumni have often made efforts across India to help people affected by natural disasters. During the 1991 Uttarkashi earthquake, the school amateur radio club was used by the government for communication purposes. Doon also oversees poor Panchayat Ghar teaching children, and many building projects and workshops for local communities. Discipline is always rigorous, and schools have expelled children from well-known families. In the 1950s, Martyn's suggestion that Sanjay Gandhi finish his senior year elsewhere was received without question by his mother, Indira Gandhi. In contrast, Doon's decision to expel the ward of Chief Minister Nityanand Swami from Uttarakhand in 2000 caused allegations of a threat to disrupt electricity and water supplies; The difficulty was overcome by the prime minister's intervention.

Student

Pupils are known as "Doscos", contractions of "Doon" and "school". Most of the alumni are Indian, but the reduced number comes from Pakistan after studying in Doon before the Partition of India forced them to leave in 1947. Relationships between Indian and Pakistani alumni have remained warm for years, despite the long history of conflict between the two countries. Boys from Bangladesh and Nepal continue to study at Doon. Doon remains a men's school despite pressure from political leaders, including President Pratibha Patil, to become coeducational.

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School activities

Sports

Sports are required at school. It has over 30 acres (120,000 m ²) playing fields, the largest being Skinner's Field and Main Field. Cricket, hockey, athletics, boxing and football associations are played on a seasonal basis. Tennis, table tennis, badminton, squash, basketball, swimming and gymnastics tournaments are also available. Sport is dominated by cricket and hockey during the spring and by football, athletics and boxing in the fall. An inter-home game is played out in cricket, hockey, and soccer. The sports facilities include a 25-meter swimming pool, boxing ring and multi-purpose hall with gymnasium and facilities for indoor badminton, basketball and table tennis. There are two artificial cricket pitches, five basketball courts, six tennis courts, four squash courts, ten cricket nets, seven fields for hockey and football (which can be converted into four cricket fields to accommodate seasonal sports), a modern cricket pavilion and two 400 meters athletic track.

Doon hosts the annual Afzal Khan Memorial Basketball Tournament, an inter-school basketball tournament.

Club and community

Extracurricular activities are also a compulsory element of school life, and magazines are published in English and Hindi. There are about 23 clubs and societies, including politics, drama, photography, aeromodelling, first aid, drama, painting, sculpture, carpentry, amateur radio, music (including the Trinity Guildhall musical exam), senior and junior British debating societies, chess and astronomy. In many societies, students come together to discuss a particular topic, headed by a principal and often include guest speakers. Schools have often invited prominent figures to give speeches and talk to students; this includes the head of state, politicians, ornithologists, naturalists, artists, writers, economists, diplomats and industrialists.

Doon School Weekly is an official school newspaper, distributed every Saturday morning. It chronicles school activities and is a platform for creative writing and politics. Founded in 1936 and edited by students. This publication aims to represent the views of the School community as well as the Old Boys, and satire and criticism of school policy have been published in the past. More subversive publications, far more critical of teachers and school establishments, are sometimes produced without an official sponsor. Other school magazines include The Yearbook and The Doon School Information Review . Publications by academic departments include VIBGYOR (Art), Echo (Science), Ekonokrat (Economy), Unlimited (Mathematics), Grand Slam (Sports) and The Circle (History and Political Science).

Mountaineering

In the middle of each term, boys go through "weekends" one week - a difficult journey, often through the Mount Siwalik or the Himalayas. Senior boys travel up to five days, without being accompanied by teachers, camping in tents, cooking their own meals and hiking. They plan this trip themselves. Alumni have credited this middle semester exam as one of their most developed and built-in characters.

Doon has been credited with mountain climbing in India, due to the achievements of such masters as R.L. Holdsworth, Jack Gibson and Gurdial Singh and alumni like Nandu Jayal. Leading ride by staff and alumni including Bandarpunch (6.316 m) in 1950, Kala Nag (6.387 m) in 1956, Trisul (7.120 m) in 1951, Kamet (7756 m) in 1955, Abi Gamin (7355 m) in 1953 and 1955, Mrigthuni (6855 m) in 1958 and Jaonli (6,632 meters) in 1964.

Some of these expeditions have their peculiarities. After Gurudial Singh leads Trisul's successful ascent, he performs the chief asana at the summit as a tribute to the Hindu god Shiva, who is said to live there. Holdsworth has been claimed to hold a record of high altitude for pipe smoking, which he did at the top of Kamet after the first ascent in 1931. Two Doon students climbed the Matterhorn in 1951 wearing cricket boots.

Theater and music

An amphitheater known as the Rose Bowl was built largely by students in two years during the 1930s and underwent major structural changes in 2009. It can accommodate up to 1,000 people and has become the backdrop for many of Shakespeare's plays and other western classical theaters, as well as performances music and speeches during a school ceremony such as Founder's Day. The Multi-Purpose Hall is a more modern indoor theater that can accommodate about 2,000 people. Performances are regularly staged in English and Hindi, with 8-9 productions each year including 2 major productions as part of the Founder's Day celebrations. The Once-Act Play House Inter competition is held annually, as an alternative in English and Hindi. Many dramas have historically been the result of a combination of Welham Welham Schools in Dehradun.

In 2001 a new music school was built next to the Rose Bowl. It houses a music library, concert halls and several practice and teaching rooms where students learn a variety of western and Indian instruments. School students have the option of appearing in the Trinity Guildhall music test, hosted by Trinity College London, in piano, violin, drums, and classical guitars. In 2002, the school choir raised INR 2 million for the victims of the 2001 Gujarat earthquake by organizing a charity concert under the title Concerto 2000 , in which Sivamani drummer also took part. To commemorate Platinum Jubilee, the school launched a music album called Spirit of Doon in collaboration with EMI. The school choir sang two songs ("Pe Aati Hai Dua" and "Anand Loke") labs for the project but only the first ones were included in the final recording. The songs were written by lyrical writers Gulzar and sung by Sonu Nigam, Italian Shayan and Bhajan Sopori.

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School songs

Attendance at the morning council required all students and teachers. Traditionally begins with a song from the school's Songbook:

Song No. 1a, - "Jana Gana Mana" by Rabindranath Tagore
Song No. 2a, - "Chisti Ne Jis Zamin Mein" by Muhammad Iqbal
Song No. 3a, - "Anand Loke" by Rabindranath Tagore
Song No. 4a, - "Saare Jahan Se Achcha" by Muhammad Iqbal
Song No. 5a, - "Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua" by Muhammad Iqbal
Song No. 6a, - "Vandana Into Swaron Mein" (a Bhajan)
Song No. 7a, - "Ghungat Ke Pat Khol Re" (associated with Meerabai)
Song No. 8Ãƒ, - "Dia Jagtrata Vishv Vidhata"
Song No. 9a, - "Seven Matu Sahayak" (a Bhajan)
Song No. 10a, - "Vande Mataram" (from poems by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay)

Although Jana Gana Mana is an Indian national anthem, traditionally referred to as "Song No. 1" in Doon for being adopted as a School Song in 1935, fifteen years before being adopted as a national Indian. National anthems School songs are deliberately chosen to include Urdu poetry and Hindu bhajans as a way of emphasizing Doon's secular ethos; likewise, school prayers include a mixture of Anglican singing and Indian poetry.

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Tie with other schools

From its foundation in 1937 to the early 1980s, Welham Boys' School was a feeder school for Doon School and Mayo College. This ended when Surendra Kandhari, an old boy and a former housewife in Doon, became Headmaster of Welham and turned her into a high school. Some families who sent their sons to Doon sent their daughters to Welham Women's School, and many Doon alums have married Welham alumni. Both schools hold annual "social dances", and their alumni sometimes collaborate in organizing events. Former Pakistani students from Doon founded the Chand Bagh School 40 km north of Lahore, Pakistan, in 1998, modeling it on Doon's general structure. Doon also has an exchange program with a number of overseas schools, such as Eton College, Harrow School, St. Albans School, Washington DC, Millfield, Schule Schloss Salem, Armidale School, Bridge House School, Deerfield Academy, King's Academy, Stowe School, Scotch College, Melbourne and St. Mark's School (Texas). In 2011 Doon twinned with The Thomas Hardye School, Dorchester, England, through a cultural exchange project hosted by the BBC and British Council in the framework of the 2012 Summer Olympics held in England.

School with a similar name

As private schools became more widespread in India, several other schools using "Doon" as part of their name, caused confusion. Among them are Doon Global School, Doon Presidency School, Doon International School, Doon Preparatory School, Doon Cambridge School, Doon Girls School, Doon Public School (in West Delhi, not Doon Valley) and Doon College of Spoken English. None of them are related to The Doon School.

Membership

Doon School is a member of the following organizations: G20 Schools, Round Square, Rotary Interact Club, Principal and Principal Conferences, International Boys' Schools Coalition, Indian School Certificate Examination Council, International Baccalaalureate Organization (IBO), India Public School Conference, Rashtriya (India), International Association of Awards

The school is a regional exam center for the ESOL Exam and Cambridge University SAT Test.

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Public image

Doon in movies & amp; television

The movie Dazed in Doon , commissioned by the School on the occasion of the 75th anniversary and produced by old boy Ashvin Kumar, is banned by the school authorities for "not giving a good name to The dispute remains unresolved.
In September 2010, BBC Sport made a documentary about Doon School for the World Olympic Dreams Project. The documentary was produced in conjunction with the British Council. The ultimate goal is to show the school where Abhinav Bindra, India's first individual Olympic gold medalist, spent his formative years.
In the 2010 Aisha Bollywood film, Randhir Gambhir's character is a Doon School alumnus.
In 2017, Channel 4 of England commissioned a 3-part documentary, Indian Summer School , in which English working class children were given the opportunity to study at Doon to see if they would benefit from sundry experience from an Indian residential school. The filming starts in August 2017, and the program is broadcast in March-April 2018.

Doon in the literature

Vikram Seth uses his own experience to be bullied at Doon to become a model of Tapan's character in a matching A Boy .
In the short story anthology Salman Rushdie, East, West, the protagonist of Zulu and Chekhov is Doscos.
In the autobiography of Tenzing Norgay Man of Everest, he calls Bandarpunch "The Doon School mountain" due to the fact that the mountain is frequented by two Doon School teachers, Jack Gibson and John Martyn.
In the novel Ruskin Bond Stranger in the Night , Jai Shankar's character comes from Doon.
The Penguins of Modern Indian Speeches (2011) include the 1992 Day of Establishment speech from Vikram Seth, which became a shocking confessional of the school community, and the 2007 speech of Mani Shankar Aiyar, renowned for her wit and humor.

Doon in research

The Doon School

Senin, 25 Juni 2018

The Doon School

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