Back in the 60's when I was a student, spin training was optional, unless you were likely to fly older aircraft that did not "self recover".
The flying club I belonged to had a Cessna 140, which was such a plane, so spin training was part of familiarization. Some years later, in the 70's,
I resumed flying after some small interruptions, such as the Vietnam war, and getting married. Aerobatics were part of the commercial / instrument training paid for by the GI bill, so naturally, I went through the basic course. The advanced course was discontinued, because the aerobatics instructor managed to do himself in flying a spray plane. I moved before a new instructor was found.

During the overall training process, it was evident that there were major differences between instructors that had a corporate pilot base and those with WWII flying experience.
It had to do with instrument vs "seat of pants", and how much weight was placed on each. The corporate people slavishly relied on instruments, and the WWII experienced pilots believed
in developing a strong "feel" for the plane. The students taught by the corporate pilots tended to make more wheel landings in general, and those taught by the old timers more often made close to full stall landings. (To the point that the rear tie down ring on one of the Cessna trainers had to be replaced every so often, because the bottom of the ring eventually wore down) I remember making was was an otherwise perfect 3 point landing in the 140, to have the tail wheel spring shackles come apart due to metal fatigue in a who knows how old bolt. We had to borrow a baggage cart place the tail on it, and drag the 140 off the instrument runway, and back to the ramp. The tower's only real comment/question was did we leave any parts (FOD) on the runway. The periodic inspection criteria totally skipped checking the offending bolt.