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This whole thread needs tidying up. There are a bits of this debate scatterered all over the forum! 

I stand by what I wrote elsewhere: "I've been involved in junior chess coaching for about thirty years, and  I strongly agree with Markovich.  This approach is also supported by the bulk of the coaching literature, but it should be noted that there are some important dissenting voices, such as Alex Yermolinsky and Nigel Davies.   
 
My own impression based on my coaching experience is that, in general, players reach FIDE 2000 fastest with a repertoire based mainly on open games, rapid development, simple plans and direct aggression. 
 
But it definitely seems that there are also some players who do not prosper on this diet - they are capable of becoming "average club players", or even beyond,  but cannot (or will not) absorb the sheer amount of detail required to play an "open games" repertoire.  Not everyone is the same (thank goodness). "

I'd add that one of my best ever students (now much stronger than me at over FIDE 2350 aged eighteen) was very uncomfortable with our club's usual suggested "open games" repertoire, and instead  put his foot down and insisted at the age of nine on playing the Queen's Gambit Exchange Variation as White and the O'Kelly Sicilian and the Schmid Benoni as Black!  As I recall he won the British U10 championship playing this repertoire! But he's definitely an exception - my experience tells me that open games and simple, direct aggressive plans are best for the vast majority of learners.

I'm happy to share my coaching ideas; you might like to check out:

http://www.btinternet.com/~cccs.chess/ChessClubCoaching.htm

I wonder what Markovich would have to say about teaching kids the Sveshnikov Sicilian. It certainly leads to lots of pieces flying about! The debate seems to center upon alumbrado's (ex-?)favourite Pirc and Markovich's 1.... e5.  I don't play either. But if an open position is what we want our kids to learn to play, why not say the sicilian or scandinavian? 

Why is 1... e5 in particular more "open" than either of these two (aside from its name)?  ???

"Euwe made it, I believe, but I can't recall where"
Neither do I, as Euwe wrote so many books, but I recall that he quoted Réti.

"he does seem to grasping the fundamentals of positional play."
The first fundamental of positional play, is to know how to activate your pieces in an open position. So there is not really a contradiction. I stated before, that as soon as a novice has mastered this, (s)he can take up more sophisticated themes.
Max Euwe has written a series of five books called Praktische Schaaklessen - Practical Chess Lessons. This method was rather popular in the Soviet Union, this as a recommendation. While book 1 is about learning the rules, book 2 treats general concepts of opening, middle game and endgame. The middle game section treats the theory of Steinitz (though I suspect it is in reality the theory of Steinitz reworked by Euwe), which is a statical way to look at positions by evaluating 11 aspects, from a lead in development to turning temporary advantages in permananet ones. This theory is illustrated with some games, the most recent one a Botvinnik game of 1943.
There is a simple pedagogical truth here. If you teach such concepts and the pupil is interested and gets it, than the pupil is ripe for it. If (s)he has a hazy look in his eyes, you better turn to something simpler.
But especially on childs level it is very important to teach tactics. Then we are back again: tactics mostly occur in open positions ....
There is another, a remarkable fact concerning child's chess. In the very beginning, they mostly enjoy playing the pieces around. But as soon as they learn the sweet taste of winning, they become very fanatic. The ambition to win is very human, isn't it? I do not see, what is vulgar about competition and competition is about striving to win. There is nothing anti-pedagogical about this. In fact, I always thought that such an attitude is typical American. "Be a winner!!!" is the device of every American sportsman, isn't it?
This does not mean, that one should deny children the beauty of chess, not at all. But putting emphasis on esthetics is more for golden oldies like me.

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Well, I don't want a protracted debate either, but I would like the chance to address some of your earlier points.

Chess is indeed chess, but there's a reason why Kieseritzky and those guys played chiefly in open fashion, and why the Max Lange Attack isn't a system of play against the Pirc.  They didn't have the understanding of the game that we have, armed with the advantage of their example and that of many strong players since.

People played the Scotch Game because, based on what today is know to be a limited understanding, it made a great deal of sense.  When Pirc-like formations came up, even as late as the 1920s, they mostly laughed at them, not understanding the positional ideas that could justify playing in that way.   

Remember, when you very correctly say "chess is chess," and your understanding encompasses everything from the Exchange Slav to the Catalan, your perspective is that of a fully educated player.  I think there is a strong argument -- Euwe made it, I believe, but I can't recall where -- that the development of a chess player recapitulates the development of chess.  I would argue that just as the chess masters of yore understood the virtues of a central pawn phalanx before they understood ideas of undermining pawn centers, so a player really has to know how to play WITH a strong pawn center before he can play in Pirc, Alekhine or Gruenfeld fashion.

I don't think its a small thing that a closed position can't arise from an open one (that's different from saying that a closed position can't arise from 1. e4 e5), while in closed positions, the key question is usually when and how to cause the position to become open.  Your conclusion was, so why not play the Pirc anyway, but the pedagogical point is that the simplest and best way to learn how to play open positions is to play directly into them.  Once you have some grasp of that you can then play the French or the Pirc and, presumably, be able to weigh your various opportunities for letting/causing the game to become open.   

If you take a chess kid with no very good understanding of   open piece play and load him up with ideas like using ...c5 to undermine white's d-pawn and increase the scope of the g7 bishop, you are really putting the cart before the horse.  He's not going to see as many open positions;  his play of the Pirc will stink because he has no way to judge when to play ...c5 or ...e5 or ...d5 and when not to; mostly he will flounder around and get mated on g7; and even if he does succeed in blasting open the position on favorable terms, he won't likely play such positions as well as a player weaned on them.  If on the other hand you teach a kid to play the Ulvestad, you will see that the resulting games more closely resemble those of a strong player, though kid chess is inevitably marred by terrible blunders.   

I admit that I haven't experimented by setting aside one group of players and teaching them the Pirc and the other the Two Knights, but for the reason's I've explained, I am fairly certain of the unwisdom  of doing that.  Talk to some people who actually coach chess kids and I think you will find that the great majority of them agree with me.

Well, I'm not gong to get drawn into a protracted debate - I have made my views pretty clear and I by and large stick by them.

Essentially, I just don't buy the argument that Open Games have some sort of unique characteristics that make them suitable for people learning the game (I am not suggesting they are unsuitable, by the way).  Equally, I have spent some time in other threads rejecting notions of the sort that the Queen's Gambit is "boring" or that the Catalan is a "positional" opening and therefore not for people who enjoy "tactics".

The way I see it, chess is chess ...

Though I think Markovich a bit inflexible in his advise what openings children should play, I can summarize his long post with:
"The fundament of education is to teach that what the pupil is ready for and has interest in."
A good chess teacher will notice, when a pupil is ready for some sophistication. I guess, Markovich would consider such a pupil a strong player.

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Drinks on me if any of you should pass through Philadelphia!  And maybe a game with my ever-improving son...

Some very fascinating thoughts here--thank you (and the real Olympians couldn't stop quarreling, so maybe it goes with the territory ).

I should stress that my son and I spend most of our chess time having fun--these are not training sessions by any stretch of the imagination.  And when we're not racing pieces around the board, we're usually playing through grandmaster games from books like Chernev's or Nunn's and talking about what he's seeing on the board.  My "instruction" is designed to provoke his imagination and interest rather than teach chess praxis.

My initial question about the 1 ... d6 repertoire stemmed largely from his desire to enter a junior tournament and wanting to survive the first five or six moves of a game.  By nature, he's a very gentle little boy and not at all aggressive, and this carries over into his chess.  He often seems reluctant to take his opponent's pieces even if they're hanging.  When asked, he knows the piece is hanging, but seems predisposed to keeping pieces on the board.  We're going to have to break this habit eventually, but he tends toward passivity, maybe closed positions are better?!