My training experience was similar to IO540's.
I had heard mention of notams during my training in TT manuals, but I naively assumed that they were either something from a bygone era, or just for airline pilots.
None were ever hung up on our club notice board, and no instructor ever showed my where to get them, or how to read them. In fact the first time I ever saw them, was on the day of my Skills Test when I had handed a badly printed fax page from an instructor and told to read them, in case the examiner asked me anything about them. I could barley make any sense out of the codes. I passed my Skills Test that day, not knowing where to get, or how to read Notams.
If fact it was through PPrune, and the help and support of other here, that I managed to educate myself in the use of notams. I now wouldn't dream of taking off without checking them first.
I had an interesting conversation with an instructor doing a checkout for me when I was joining a different club. He asked me if I had checked the notams. I quickly produced my narrow route brief, having circled the ones I thought relevant. He quickly produced his own printout, was rather surprised that my list contained some relevant notams that his didn't, and that my list was about 4 pages, while his was 1 & 1/2.
It turns out that he gets his notams from an unofficial source on the net, where he simply puts in his field of departure and destination. What he gets returned is the notams for the two airfields, but nothing enroute
If you are just bimbling in the local area, you'll probably get away with this. But if you want to go any distance, you need to be able to do a proper briefing.
I blame the instructors. I was churned out of the PPL training system, not knowing where or how to get Notams, and not knowing how to read them if I did find them. But worst of all, I was churned out not knowing their importance.