Freire's philosophy of education was adopted and modified by various writers.

The most prominent

figure in this aspect is Ira Shor, who was mainly influenced by Freire. In his Critical Teaching and
Everyday Life, Shor criticizes the institutionalized modes of education which involve undemocratic
approaches. He demonstrates that these traditional systems have restricted students from contributing
to the learning processes. He calls for implementing learning activities that are democratic in nature.
These activities are set against the notions of education that students have from their previous
experiences within the traditional pedagogical system. The democratic methods of teaching would
change the role of students from passive to active critical subjects in which they become active
participants in their own learning (111-113).

Shor also pointed out some of the limitations of Freire's assumptions. Examining the applicability of the
Freirean philosophy, he stressed the difficulties involved in implementing the principles of this
philosophy within the classroom setting. In his When Students Have Power, he strongly argues that
despite the benefits gained from the implementation of the assumptions of critical pedagogy; these
assumptions do not go smoothly when turned into practice in the context of classroom environment
(56).

However, Freire responded to this claim when he stressed the fact that his educational philosophy was
not merely a collection of strategies that could be implemented in all educational environments. Rather,
different educational practices should be adapted depending on each individual context. Freire
acknowledged that pedagogy is influenced by ideology and since ideologies vary a lot, the existence of a
single philosophy of critical pedagogy is not practical. Hence, "one cannot speak of pedagogy but must
speak instead of pedagogies which respond to particular necessities, interests and conditions"
(Gaudiano and de Alba 128).

The challenges of reaching a definite conception of critical pedagogy brought about different
approaches to the philosophy by many writers. bell hooks, for example, supports Freire in promoting the
link between theory and practice in order for the student to be the center of the teaching process.
However, she does not employ Freire's concept of critical pedagogy. Rather, she has introduced what
she calls "engaged pedagogy." She defines it as a system that combines "anticolonial, critical, and
feminist pedagogies … for interrogating biases in curricula that reinscribe systems of domination …
while simultaneously providing new ways to teach diverse groups of students" (qtd. in Florence 10). A
central feature of this model is the repudiation of the use of sophisticated language; a key feature of
traditional educational methods that creates barriers between students and teachers.

Roger Simon has introduced another significant approach to critical pedagogy which he calls "pedagogy
of possibility." In his "Empowerment as a Pedagogy of Possibility" Simon contends that proposing
pedagogy is also proposing a political ideology. Hence, this model of pedagogy aims at "enabling a
particular moral project, a particular 'not yet' of how we might live our lives together" (372). He stresses
the fact that such a pedagogy "will require forms of teaching and learning linked to the goal of educating
students to take risks, to struggle with ongoing relations of power, to critically appropriate forms of
knowledge that exist outside their immediate experience, and to envisage versions of a world that is
'not yet' - in order to be able to alter the grounds upon which life is lived" (375).