Sounds like an arsey-versy way of structuring teaching to me, but I know there are lots of people who really do work on the theory-is-the-basis-of-practice approach, rather than theory-grows-out-of-practice.

I think it's like being left-handed or right-handed, largely down to the way our brains are wired. Buty I think people often seem to assume that the way their own brain is wired is the way everyone else's brains are wired, and it's just sheer cussedness when people don't seem to match up to that. (And that can happen just as much the other way round, with theory-grows-out-of-practice types.)