Ringtail,

If I were teaching someone new to backpacking, I'd have to agree. Many won't go any further than that. Nor is it really necessary for a person who is going to stay on popular trails.

If the final goal advanced navigation, I'd still start with dead reckoning. One reason is it can be practiced simply in any big area. In the military, we started with dead reckoning and in survival school, we only used dead reckoning. We weren't given a map. Just a bearing and distance to the next checkpoint.