• During the 2020-2021 pandemic lockdowns SOT, based in Melbourne, upgraded and adapted all SOT training to streaming 100% online.
School of Thinking is an elite independent school awarding bespoke degrees in Lateral Thinking.
It has a student body of 650+ active students of whom over 80% hold post-graduate degrees in science. In 2021 SOT awarded 82 Advanced Certificates, 37 Diplomas and 23 Master of Lateral Thinking degrees.
School of Thinking (SOT) has no advocacy and no agenda. It is privately self-funding. It accepts no sponsors, grants or aid. No accreditation nor affiliation. It is a school of thinking. Not a school of thought. Our mission is to teach metacognition.
• SOT is a school of the cloud. During the 2020-2021 pandemic lockdowns SOT, based in Melbourne, upgraded and adapted all SOT training to streaming 100% online. With the rapid advances in neuroscience in the last decade new masterclasses and clinics have been added. Bespoke semesters for larger clients are designed and delivered on consultation.
SOT is elite, it is not for everyone. It is for seekers. However, all are warmly invited. School of Thinking was the first school on the internet, in 1995, and always offers pro bono lessons to anyone, anywhere, anytime, 24/7/365.
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The School of Thinking’s Diploma of Lateral Thinking DipLT(SOT) is an elite academic deed awarded for the successful completion of advanced studies in lateral thinking. It is elite because lateral thinking is difficult and the award is rare – being less than 100 diplomas ever awarded worldwide. Ten hours of masterclass training with Michael Hewitt-Gleeson are required for qualification plus twenty hours of practical application in the field. So, it may take around thirty hours to gain proficiency in lateral thinking.
The DipLT(SOT) masterclasses and clinics involve a different kind of training combining valuable IP from business, the academy and from military science.
DipLT(SOT)
Dr Hewitt-Gleeson co-founded the school with Cambridge Don, Edward de Bono, in New York in 1979. Today he is recognised as the father of x10 Thinking. The Visiting Fellow in Innovation, Latrobe University, holds a PhD degree in Cognitive Science from the elite International College. It was the world’s first PhD in Lateral Thinking. Michael graduated from International College in 1980 and the pedagogy for the School of Thinking owes much to that of the far-sighted International College of the 1980s.
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International College (IC) was an independent, private, licenced college, founded in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. Licensed to grant degrees by the California State Department of Education, IC degrees were recognized by Harvard, Yale, NYU and other Ivy League colleges. It was a virtual college having no classrooms, libraries or laboratories and a business model that was ahead of its time. As its motto, In Vestigiis Institutorum Antiquorum indicated, the college followed the methods of the first Greek and Roman universities, where gifted students were paired one student/one master with celebrated tutors.
At IC the outstanding tutors were: Leonard Bernstein in Music and Conducting; Anaïs Nin in Novels and Writing; Buckminster Fuller in Innovation and Design Science; Lord Yehudi Menuhin in Violin and Music; Edward de Bono in Education and Psychology. Other world-renowned tutors at IC included: poet Kenneth Rexroth; author Lawrence Durrell; documentary Oscar-winning filmmaker Robert Snyder; dance instructor Anna S. Halprin; historian-philosopher Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn; educator Ivan Illich; musician Ravi Shankar; economist Hans Sennholz; and, before their passing, communications expert Marshall McLuhan; architect F. Lloyd Wright; and paleontologist Louis S. B. Leakey.
In 1980, Hewitt-Gleeson was admitted to International College and paired with Edward de Bono for the world’s first PhD in lateral thinking. The field project he designed involved 26 New York hospitals and their 40,000 healthcare employees. His external examiner for the project was George Gallup, founder of The Gallup Poll at Princeton.
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Conducting leadership training for cadets at RAAF Base, Sale. January 1974.
Prior to his career in lateral thinking, he had already 7 years of service in the ADF (Australian Defence Force). He had been educated and trained at the Army’s rigorous Officer Training Unit, Scheyville (1967-68). After a tour of duty in the Vietnam War (1968-1969) he continued as a reserve officer and Chief Instructor in the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) with the rank of Flying Officer (1970-1974).
Dr Hewitt-Gleeson is Australia’s best-selling author of Software For Your Brain (1990), The x10 Memeplex: Multiply your business by 10! (2000) and The 4th Brain (2019).