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Ccalderon,

I appreciate the way you're really struggling to understand, apply, and question some of Freire's key ideas here.  I'm especially thinking about this question of whether 'the oppressed' need to be educated about their own circumstances.  You note that you think they know about this but may need the 'tools to help them overcome the oppressor,' which is of course tricky b/c educators might also be part of an oppressor group.  This whole question of who has the full, accurate understanding of the conditions of oppression is a difficult one.  What if (as Freire uses as an example) people locate oppression in their low wages, and the educator thinks this is true but not a broad enough perspective -- who's got the more accurate picture of the world here?  And this matters in terms of tools for change since in the first instance tools might be geared to the individual but in the second to a broader organizing effort... 

Great last question about public schools; what do you think -- is this possible?