Claiming recursion is taught badly and then trying to teach recursion immediately via call stacks is certainly a choice. The guts of how your favorite compiler implements recursion is hardly what I would call "the correct way" to teach the concept.
It's not shocking that students snooze their way through discrete math, try their hardest to forget induction proofs, and the arrive in algorithms or some other higher level class and try their hardest to forget recursion/dynamic programming.
The reality is the concepts are hard and demand practice to obtain familiarity. There is no quick path to mathematical maturity. If you try your hardest to phone in induction then surprise surprise recursion is nonsensical to you.
It's not shocking that students snooze their way through discrete math, try their hardest to forget induction proofs, and the arrive in algorithms or some other higher level class and try their hardest to forget recursion/dynamic programming.
The reality is the concepts are hard and demand practice to obtain familiarity. There is no quick path to mathematical maturity. If you try your hardest to phone in induction then surprise surprise recursion is nonsensical to you.