When we think about problem solving as orientation and mobility specialists, we often think about it in a way of figuring out where you are after you have made the wrong turn; after you've stepped off the wrong sidewalk; after you've done something that was not on your planned route. But what if we could take that idea of problem solving and make it broader? And we could take that and chunk it up into figuring out like an algorithm, or the best way to figure out the solution to just about any problem. That's a little bit of what we learned about, at the symposium last year, when Dr. Amiri and Mr. Basirzadeh, I hope I said that name right, came and told us about TRIZ. Now, at the symposium, I have to say I loved that presentation, because it made the concept of teaching problem solving very black and white. Whereas we usually are very in the grey zone with it. And each student may get different questions from the owner and specialist depending upon where they are. This is actually like a systematised approach to problem solving as it relates to problem solving in the whole, so not just O&M problem solving, but problem solving of any issues. It takes into consideration the resources you have and then you apply those resources to help you figure out where you are, what's around you, whatever problems that you need to solve for.

In this podcast episode:

• Introduction

• Who is Dr. Fatane Amiri

• What O&M Looks Like in Iran

• How Dr. Amiri Got Into O&M

• Being a Woman in Iran

• What is TRIZ

• How to Use TRIZ to Problem Solve

Transcript of the Episode:

Introduction

Kassy:
Now, I will say before we even get into this interview, that my understanding of TRIZ, although I am fascinated by it, is still very minimal. I think it can be easy to be turned off by this system. If you want everything to be really easy and simple. And for somebody to hand, do a 123. This is how you do it. And it'll work no matter what, no matter what student, because whatever is, what I've noticed, when I teach it is I have to dig a little bit deeper. Now once you get the hang of it, it's much easier than just coming up with random questions. But actually putting it into place, for me has been the tricky part. Now it's really interesting to hear Dr. Amiri speak about it, because I love the way that she understands it on such a deeper level. And me asking questions about O&M and her talking about this system, we get to really dive into some sticky parts, where this is a really, really great system. And you can tell that I don't fully understand how exactly to use it. So we think it's really interesting to see somebody who's had some experience and really invested in it, and still knows that there's still so much more that I don't know. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Amiri.

Who is Dr. Fatane Amiri

Kassy:
Oh my gosh, such a powerful woman, Dr. Fatane Amiri has a PhD on creativity and engineering in the field of disability incentive problem solving TRIZ. She's a member of ICEVI, International Council education for people with disabilities. She's a founder and director of Harvard's International Film Festival based on disability issues. She is the founder manager of Academy for people with disability and dyslexia hyperactive and autistic students. She's also a national and international teacher, researcher and writer in the field of education and empowerment for people with disabilities. Now, the woman does a lot and she knows so much and it is such a delight to have such a strong and powerful woman sit down and have a conversation and I also want to say thank you to Dr. Amiri for having this conversation in English, because I don't know how to speak her language. So thank you all, for listening to this podcast. I really hope you enjoy.

Welcome Dr. Amiri to our podcast, A Step Forward. I personally value you and everything that you're doing in our field and just everything that you do, and how well you use social media, even though I don't always understand what you're saying. But you have done so much for our field and for people with visual impairments and using TRIZ. That I really am so glad that we get to introduce you to our community here. Would you like to share a little bit about yourself?

Dr. Amiri:
Yes, first of all, I want to thank you that invited me for this great interview. And I am too much happy to know you and your great symposium. And I would like to tell you congratulation for this great programme. empowerment and education for people with visual impairment is very important in these days, because when we help them to be empower, actually it is held to ourselves to have a sustainable development and great people. So as you told, I am Dr. Fatane Amiri from Iran and my PhD topic is TRIZ. It means inventive problem solving. I have learned time near to 30 years of experiences, working in field of disability, and especially for people with visual impairment. I have written some books related to new approaches and new methods. And I prefer them to field of disability for teachers and educators and older person that working in this field. Also, I am founder, the director of International Film Festival. This is based on disability issues. And I establish the first Academy in Iran. For people with disability, especially for training, knowledge and skills for a student with visual impairment and other kinds of disability. I've written some articles about dyslexia, about orientation and mobility, for imagery and for tactile thoughts for the blind and everything I thinking that it is necessary to awareness about people with disability, especially visually impaired students.

What O&M Looks Like in Iran

Kassy:
Dr. Amiri, I just, I almost want to ask how you keep up with it all. But that's not the point of this podcast. That's amazing. So you founded a whole like institution for people to get training? That's, I don't even know where to begin with asking how one does that. But I am curious about what orientation and mobility looks like in Iran. Can you talk a little bit about that, and what got you into even wanting to do what you do now?

Dr. Amiri:
For mobility and orientation in Iran, you’re asking? As you know, old person that have visually impairment need to movement and need to going around their house around their city, and they need to have contact with other person going for a job going for education going for contact with the society. And for people with visual impairment, it is necessary that they can get these skills that they can move in safe way and they can move in a great way and they should proper the city to have confidence that they can going around the home and they can contact with other person without any fear without any problem for them. So in Iran, trying to make some facilities and make accessible some public places, such as metro train, bus and going to school and everywhere. We try to make accessible for them but I think more than working on accessible and making some facilities for people with visual impairment, awareness is too much important. Because I saw sometimes we do something for these facilities. But when people don't know, what is this, and why, for what reason, we did this facilities, so we couldn't get complete results. So I think, with accessible things for our society, we should our honest people about these issues and these things for people.

How Dr. Amiri Got Into O&M

Kassy:
Right, I think we face the same things here, where we want to make sure that people with visual impairments can get around their community, and we value them as people. But the funding that we get for the teachers comes from the government, which is decided in part by the people, but the people don't understand, because they don't see people with visual impairments travelling out in the world. So it's kind of like a catch 22 or, you know, the circular issue where it's hard to get funding for a situation that we can't really solve. Dr. Amiri, tell me how you got into your profession and what you do, what brought you to where you are right now?

Dr. Amiri:
You're know there, from that time, I was young, I like to help to other people. And I was a smart student, and very active student in high school. And also, when I went to university, I choose my field in university to going this way. And I love this, my major, I love this my study and my experiences in this field. And I, my searches this way. And during 30 years or 30 years, I did many great things. And I am satisfied for that, because I love that. And I was successful also because God helped me to this way for everything I wanted to do, besides have many problems, and many limited and many things that I faced many challenges I had in my way, but I am successful, because God helped me for this.

Being a Woman in Iran

Kassy:
Well, you are very successful. You help so many people. And I know that the work that you're doing is being felt all around the world. I have one side question. And that's with you being in Iran. Are there a lot of women who go to university and also become doctors in your country? Or was that also another challenge that you had to face?

Dr. Amiri:
Iranian women are very powerful. And I would like to tell you, Iranian woman very beautiful, very fashion, very active and very friendly. And they working in many places they study in high position, and they are very active to doing very society, social work. And many position in Iran is in hands of women.

Kassy:
That is exactly what I wanted to hear over here in America. The media doesn't portray it that way. I have my own ideas as to why but this isn't a political podcast. And so I just kind of had to ask, because you just basically described yourself, it's just really nice to know that there are many women of your stature, your beauty, your impact, and your power all around the world, no matter what the media tells us here in America, because that's not always true.

What is TRIZ

Kassy:
So I got to know you because you came to this symposium, and you taught us at like three o'clock in the morning your time, which I appreciate so much. But you taught us about this concept called TRIZ. And during the symposium, I'm personally in all of the rooms whenever we have a conference going on last year the symposium had two rooms going on. So I'm in both rooms and I'm overseeing all the things and I'm not watching everybody and I have multiple teams happening behind the scenes that I'm helping to coordinate everything. So I don't typically get to sit down and watch the actual presentation as it is happening. But with yours, I felt so strong with these concepts, because it felt like something I had been searching for. Here in the United States, we almost play it by ear when we talk about problem solving. And sometimes we have a little like jingle or a little poem that we will say, or sometimes we will ask the student or the learner questions, but it's not step by step. Where TRIZ, in the moment, it felt complicated to learn about, because it's very vast, but it did offer step by step. And I'd like to know a little bit more about TRIZ itself. And then we can get into how to use TRIZ for problem solving for people with visual impairments, if that'd be okay with you?

Dr. Amiri:
Yes, you know, when I want to going for teaching, training, everything filled of creativity was very important for me. And when I working at a school for blind students, I was trying to trying to encourage teachers to making some facilities and put some time to learn art and their creativity for visually impaired students. Maybe you know, it is a little difficult for teachers, for educators that put some effort for earning to visually impaired students some arts because it just takes too much time and energy. But I think it is necessary for them, because they have to make their map in their mind, they have to make some imagery in their mind, when we talking about orientation and mobility. It is not impossible without imagery without imagination in their mind. Many times teachers complain that we learn something about left and right up and down on something like this. But a student didn't learn, a student have a problem. It is not related to teaching or learning of students or teachers, because it is a problem that related to somewhere and something else. When we cut some activities for making imagery, and imagination for people with visually impairment, how we can want of them to going right, to going safe and doing activity.

And also the 46 year, I would like to request you we can have another interview for dyslexia, because it is too much important for orientation and mobility for blind students. And creativity. It is very important for me, because I think in these days with this progress in technology in things happen in our society, we need active, creative, dynamic and positive person. And it is too much important for people with disability and also for visually impaired students, because they need to solve many, many problems in their life in every day. When we wake up in the morning, up to night that we going in the bed, we need to solve many problems, it is not out of our life, we need to solve many problems and visually impaired students need to be inventive to solve their problems. So when I want to study for PhD, I didn't want to study such as other students that the regular things that they study. I searching for something new. I searching and study for something new in this world for that is suitable for this situation that we have.

So by accident, I heard about TRIZ, but I didn't know anything about that. And when I went to a study about TRIZ, it was very difficult that what is trees and what it said. So I studied about that and I went to university in out of Iran, because it is not in Iran and I want to improve my English also I wanted to have impact and interaction with other researcher in other countries. So I studied my PhD in other countries, and I force in university that I want to study about TRIZ. Nobody knows about TRIZ. And it was one challenge that I faced to eat. After I studied about TRIZ. It was another my challenges that are you wanted to study TRIZ in field of disability, because before, nobody, no researcher is studied about these in field of disability issues, because I believe that when we talking about creativity, it means we can solve our problems with less money, less costs, less energy, and less time and best results. So people with disability more than other people face to problem. Based on this idea, I thought that people with disability need more other people to be creative to solve their problem with best results. So I studied about TRIZ. And I want to explain what is TRIZ.

TRIZ is an international science. It happened maybe during 40 or 50 years ago, and one Russian scientist, Altschuler, he was very intelligent person, that when he was 14 years old, he invents something and he registered his patent. So he has this opportunity that working to that place that people scientists register their patents. So he has this opportunity that working on a study his patent. Altschule studied more than 200-1000s patterns. And he found something great, he found that many scientists going through their invention, and when they want to invent something new, the old scientists going the same way. But 95% of all scientists way is the same after that 5% their way is different. So actually think that why we don't use the same way for all people that no need to going and wasting time wasting energy wasting my costs. And finally, they can get something new. So actually, during their study found 40 principles that he believes if we codify these principles, we can train this principle to HIPAA and increasing their creativity. So people can, in less time, have inventive problem solving, they have found a very good solution for their problems. Pretty sure things in this International Science is somebody somewhere sometimes solve this problem, or something similar to this problem. And nowadays, our creativity is that we adapt our problem to those problems, and find out solution from those solution. And this helps us to very short time, solve inventive our problems. Thank you.

How to Use TRIZ to Problem Solve

Kassy:
So the big thing that I want to point out with that is that this isn't something that you just made up for O&M? It’s an actual scientific process that you've taken and combined your knowledge of TRIZ with your knowledge and understanding of orientation and mobility, but also working with people with visual impairments. We can list out the resources on our show notes, but can you just give one example of a resource and how you would use it to help somebody problem solve?

Dr. Amiri:
Yes, let me I want to tell some of the name of TRIZ, TRIZ is a Russian words and in English is TIPS. TIPS it means Theory of inventive Problem Solving and the knowledge of the TRIZ with the names and titles of various descriptors, systematic invention, inventive creativity, creativity and intervention technology, invention methodology, invention algorithm, inventive problem solving methodology, the methodology of inventive creativity and innovation engineering, creativity methodology, inventive creativity, technology creativity and so on. This is the name of TRIZ that it is in the short name his theory of inventive problem solving. And I would like to tell you why TRIZ is important.

As I said, you in this progress in technology in our society, educational systems should be going to those programme that making students to be creative. And those as the programme should be those things that make you questioning and making active and making exploring students that going and searching and questioning and everything that they need to solve their problem. So, that for these issues, give that motivation to students that they have interaction with their environment, be very careful and accurate, pay attention to everything and they can find many things around them that always we don't pay too much attention to them. So, these principles help us to have concentration to many things that is around for example, I want to tell you something like this glasses. Glasses is familiar for visually impaired students, okay, this device has about five principles in itself, because the first principles are to use is segmentation. segmentation means you pay attention that many device as a separate part, for example, this has separate parts and classes and everything that is in the classes. And after that, the second principle is combined merging we cannot use separate of every part of many devices, it should be combined and merging together that we can use it very easily for ourselves. So different part of classes combined and merging two together and make a facilities that we can use easily. Another principle of three is is dynamic, if this classes we couldn't fold it like this, okay, it will be very difficult to use it. So, making this device is glasses something like this, we can afford this and put in our pocket in our bag and every places, but it is not dynamic. And it is like this, it is make us difficult for using it. Also it is intermediary it is one device that helps us to reading easily, to send objects very easily and help us in this way. So this principle, when we codify them, and teaching them to people, they can take more attention for everything around them. And they can take many information from many things, and they can have inventive problem solving.

Kassy:
So even just with glasses, it sounds like there's so much to learn with TRIZ. It goes… I don't even know sorry.

Dr. Amiri:
Like pen, we know why pen is the top of his circle, it is for easy to using. And it is this one of the principle of TRIZ, because it has angles and it is not easy for using. And why this pen is circle like this, why this pen is from different parts and why it is combined together. Many things like these, it helps us to thinking about many things, very many details and using these details to many things around us.

Kassy:
Right, so when we're looking at like let's say somebody is going to cross the street, and they end up at a different part of the street than they expected. How would they use TRIZ to figure out where they were at that intersection?

Dr. Amiri:
Okay, let me to explain for you the resources of TRIZ that we had lecture in the symposium. We divided the resources of TRIZ in several things: materials, fields of energy, and functional resources, and informational resources, and special resources. So, when we teach these resources for government, for educational system, and for teachers for educators, and then they use this for students, it helps them to using these resources for going to out the city and going out of business problem. So for example, materials or any type of system material, and its surrounding include raw material equipment, and machinery, human resources, and immortal lands, and natural resources and funds. And we divide these resources in schools and orientation and mobility for the students. For example, for this, instances of resources in a school is the number of computer and the number of classes number of available, for example, just for this example, we can use these resources with other resource to help to a student with visual impairment. How they going working in worksite, and going to a street, and we can learn there. And you, you also using this strategy, these skills. But when we put them in the very design knowledge for students, for teachers, it helps us to using them very easily. So I am sure that you put their name, put their number for every street. And you learning to students that cross, how is the cross and how is the learn and everything about details of that. But TRIZ help us to classify to put them in the different information that when and how we can use this information for a specific problem for a specific skills. And for resources, some instances, resources for orientation and mobility such as cane, and such as six dots for a braille and how they can holding the cane and how they can put their position of their body and something like this. For energy, you have also this that how they can use the sunlight and part of the sunlight and everything. We use this in classified in different packages, to learn them when and how they can use them.

Kassy:
Alright, okay, so I think that what I took away from the symposium the first time was just kind of reiterated. What I took away was that, you know, when a student or a learner needs to problem solve, we can go down the list and say, Okay, what material resources do you have right now? What, I can't remember all of them, but there was like a time and energy resource. What energy resources I was one of them do you have right now and then we can list that out. And you were saying to categorise them?

Dr. Amiri:
Would you like I read the resources and explain for you?

Kassy:
No, I think we got them. And we'll put them up on the show notes, because you just explain them. I'm just such a visual learner and didn't think to re-download the PowerPoint before this meeting today. But what I think that you're saying is that we use the resources, we have a step by step list that we can go through to say, You're the resources that I have right now and kind of use them as what we call clues are landmarks to determine where we are. Does that make sense? Is that what you guys are thinking?

Dr. Amiri:
Resources helps to teachers and educators. And principles helps to students to pay attention more to the environment around themselves. And I think resources and principles should be learned teaching together for education. On our system for teachers, for educators, that they can use this resource and principles to improving skills of students with visual impairment, they should have more information and more details about these, that they can use it or improving blind the students skills.

Kassy:
Okay, I think I get what you're saying. So it's not just about when they are already lost, but learning about them all the time. And then when they need to problems or when they need to figure out where they are, then they will already know them.

Dr. Amiri:
I have done my research on 30 blind students, okay. They were in high school in Delhi City, New Delhi, in India. And they were from many cities in India, with different culture and different religion and everything different intellectual and everything, because I wanted to show that when we training principles and resources for blind students. Any kind of these students, we can help them to increasing their creativity. So during my research, I got many good results from this research, because a student with visual impairment could find many concepts that they miss them in their school in their classes. Also, they have to cooperate together, they have to work together in a team working and they got many social skills, and also they got many individual skills. So they could discuss together, they could talk to each other, and they could help to each other. I asked them, when you going to dormitory for after class, you should find and search many things that today in the class, you'll learn about that. So when another day they come to class, they bring for me many examples about those principles that will work about it in our class. After our session, this students, they told me and I observed that they change. Chang in mind. Change in behaviour. Change in movement, and they have changing in many activity that before their session they didn't do like that. So then they concentration to many details about many devices such as their cane. Why they cane have different parts. They can put each other and this are together and or when they want to use it, they can open it and use them why some cane have something in the top of it, that helps them to going around easily, or maybe sometimes it is made some difficult for them. When they knowing about many details about this. It helped them to be independent to many situations, and many things that they can solve their problems. I experienced this things.

Kassy:
Yeah, that's wonderful. I've just started using it with one of my students. And we're just at the stage of learning about the resources and identifying some of the resources just in our class, you know, day today. So we're gonna wrap up to make sure that we honour your time and our listeners time. Is there anything that you would like to share with our listeners about their next steps as far as learning about TRIZ and how they can get more information?

Dr. Amiri:
I will tell that when we want to making good results, it is not enough that we concentration to just to that things because I told you, when a student visual impairment have problem to orientation or mobility, we should find the result to another things, Because it is important that some people has dominating right but the answer some people have dominating left body. And reading and writing the Braille is from left hand so when teachers and educators don't pay attention, when the student is dominant in right hand, he shouldn't go to reading or writing with left hand, because it makes his confused in their mind. And then you can find this result to this students that they cannot wear easily their dress, they cannot go to route their right place, they cannot organise their homework, they cannot something like their table always is very messy. And they bag they left many their devices. Always they miss their pencil, their left their bag. Something like this. This students problem related to dominate their hand, it is important, it is dyslexia that makes many problem for them. If teachers knows about these, this problem has very easily and very simple solution. When teacher knows that he or she can solve this problem. So parents and students can do their activity in right ways and in correct ways. And also for imagery I explained very short for you that imagery is very important for students with visual impairment that these two things is held to us that making a students ready for learning orientation and mobility in correct ways.

Kassy:
Thank you so much. Well, Dr. Amiri, it was so wonderful to have you on the podcast. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us about trees, and how we can get started using this system with our learners. We will link the TRIZ website. And we'll link any of the other websites that you want me to put up on our show notes. I just wanted to say thank you so much. It has been such a pleasure having you.

Dr. Amiri:
Thank you. Thank you very much.