List of abandoned education methods

This is a list of education practices (sometimes called fads) which have been replaced by or abandoned in favor of newer (or older) practices. To maintain a balanced point of view, each example should provide a source showing that the practice was abandoned or replaced. A practice abandoned by one school, for example reform mathematics, may still be in adoption by other schools, so opposing methods may both appear on this list at different times or locations.

• New Math:^[1][2] abandoned and discredited by the late 1960s.
• Open classroom:^[3] some schools still use this model, but no longer as predominant as it was in the 1960s and 1970s.

• Initial Teaching Alphabet: this regularization of standard English spelling was intended to permit exception-free learning of the rules, yet was strongly reminiscent of traditional spelling, and permitted easy transition to the latter.

Notes

1. "the new math was too complex for most students to grasp. The movement failed, but not before it created a generation of adults who hate mathematics
2. Greenberg, D. (1995). And 'Rithmetic, Free at Last - The Sudbury Valley School. Retrieved January 11, 2010.
3. The open classroom: schools without walls became all the rage during the early 1970s. Were they just another fad? Education Next, Spring, 2004 by Larry Cuban