A friend took a basic riders course this weekend and ended up dumping the bike in a 2nd gear turn due to being flustered by the controls (throttle, brake, shifter, clutch).
She's going to take a step back, do some practice, go back for a private lesson, then finish the course later.
An electric bike would have been easier to learn on - could isolate certain skills and controls. I think it's useful to learn how to operate a manual gearbox gas bike, but it's intimidating to a non-trivial number of new riders.