Javascript is a fine, popular language indeed -- but I absolutely loathe the way it's taught. I've helped several friends go through hacker schools/bootcamp programs and it's always terrible. They end up getting so confused by jQuery and Backbone and Express and Node that they don't understand where Javascript begins or ends. The end result is they miss the most basic, fundamental programming concepts.
For that reason I'm still of the opinion that the pedagogy is more important than language and I will continue to recommend SICP or HTDP to beginners.