Two different issues it seems. At university, many lecturers are not required to be trained teachers and so can easily develop poor pedagogy. I taught one term of differential equations to engineers, as their usual maths lecturer was away on some sabbatical. As a former physicist I thought I had a good idea of the engineering attitude to this. So I gave them the ready-made worksheets but taught it completely differently. I showed them how the equations related to the final waveforms and how those were described by the formulas and then finally linked the diff eqns to the solution techniques. They seemed pretty pleased with themselves!!

But I don't see that as the problem in primary; they are just required to teach everything and are just not good enough at everything and - most worrying - transmit their fears and incomprehension to their students. I make sure I teach my own daughter at home!

One last thing, I'd like to include your post in the next math-trail compilation, but need your permission first. Is that OK?