I am Better at English Than He!

Grammar warriors, help me out.

Would you teach junior high schoolers that they should be saying:

"He is taller than I." OR
"He is taller than me."

Now, I know the grammatical arguments. I know the controversy over whether "than" is a conjunction or a preposition. However, I take a more organic view to these things. Do you think it would better serve a teenager to say "I" or "me"?

I am going with "me" on this one but some other teachers disagree with me. If a junior high student would be encountering actual conversations from the vernacular, I think it would serve them better. Of course, I am teaching in Japan so all they are encountering are stilted text readings created by committees of non-native speakers. I think teachers feel more comfortable explaining the rules for "I."

I would consider teaching it this way:

"I am tall."
"He is tall."
"He is taller than I am."

This would require materials for the board to illustrate, but it would be easy to teach I think as they would already grasp "I am..." Then again:

"I am tall."
"He is tall."
"He is taller than me."

Might be a good way to teach about the object of the sentence. The counter argument being that you cant say, "He is taller than me am."

But, let's think about a 12 year old complaining:

"I'm so short. When will I grow. This sucks. Everybody is taller than I!"

Doesn't really work, does it?

Help me out.

Update:

Reading back through my Strunk and White I find the cautrionary "In general, aviod 'understood' verbs by supplying them." As usual, I defer to the masters and find them correct.

For example:

"He eats pizza more than I."
"He eats pizza more than I do."

"She lloves him more than me."
"She love him more than I do."

Better English that way, I think.