StickMonkey3:
I have had several students who were scared stiff of stalls after poor initial instruction, and it was my task to fix that at a professional airline training school.
Given the reluctance to teach stalling properly, and the ubiquity of low-time instructors hours-building towards their ATPLs, it is very much a case of the blind leading the blind. It is,however, extremely difficult now to earn a decent living as an experienced flight instructor, so I don't see the situation changing anytime soon.
The problem is hardly new, but is creeping into higher strata in an ostensibly professional industry. My father had been a civil service AT-6 flight instructor, but never felt motivated to get a CFI ticket postwar; he was a machinist and toolmaker by trade, and the market was flooded by ex-military pilots.
But occasionally Dad's friends had "problem" students who were either nervous in slow flight regimes or whatever. Even though Dad had no authority to sign their logs for dual time, he had a reputation for getting them comfortable in confidence-building slow flight. So on a strictly volunteer basis, he took them through stall approach and recovery and other exercises.
And the students' landings improved remarkably after a few sessions of this.