So, Chuck, I favour the start with a spamcan, until the trainee is comfortable with the basic control skills, Then,is the time to introduce something more challenging!...but, as I said before,It's about keeping the industry lubricated with cash and thus the CAA wallahs in a job!
Here is an interesting observation based on my recall of flight training.
I started training pilots in the mid fifties mostly on tail wheel airplanes, the last time I used my flight instructors rating to train PPL's was in 1965 and about half of the training that last year was in a tail wheel airplane.
I can only recall one accident during all those years involving a PPL student and that was a ground loop in a Luscombe by a PPL student doing solo circuits. ( Not my student..)
So.....taking into account that time span covers having observed thousands and thousands of accident free training hours and only one loss of control accident how does that compare to the number of busted nose wheels one can find in the AAIB reports?