Teaching a new driver how to shift gears in a manual transmission is fun- NOT. I learned how to drive a stick shift as a teenager because that's the way my family's cars were back in the Stone Age. My daughters learned to drive with an automatic transmission, so they avoided practice with a clutch for a long time. By the time they were interested, I was done with driving lessons, and encouraged them to just practice on their own, which didn't happen much. However, learning to use a manual transmission is becoming more popular with Generation Z, possibly because Millennials didn't.
A father of a teenager requested recommendations for a fun and relatively inexpensive car to give her. Strangely, he didn't mention whether she already knows how to use a stick shift. Still, Steve DaSilva gives his best advice in this video from Jalopnik.
If your budget is a little higher, Andy Kalmowitz had a different recommendation a few months ago.
And those video answer the question we all had, whether we are teaching kids to drive or not. Yes, you can still buy a new car with a manual transmission in the US.