I learned it that way, along with the = sign showing the sides are equal. But by the time I was teaching, we used Pac-Man, drawing the rest of him around the hungry mouth. I still added "another way to look at it is," and described the spaces:
Big>little same=same little<Big
Because it doesn't matter how your mind makes the connection, as long as it works for you.
Edit to add:Pac-people are easier to draw than crocodiles
It is weird that Z is considered a bigger letter than A. If triangle pointing down means descending order, it would be Z-A. Ergo, it must mean ascending order and small filesizes are on top just like small letters are on top.