Not All Nerds
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In fact, I would say that the majority of young physicists at the university level do not fit into the mold of what the media portrays as the “typical geek.” I can say this with confidence as I am a member of the physics faculty at Northwestern (where Dr. Tae taught briefly and I should note that I did not overlap with him) and I skateboard, snowboard, have tattoos, etc etc. I have a colleague who lived on the streets for several years fighting drug addiction before finishing his PhD in astrophysics and going on to become a successful researcher. My TA for a course I’m currently teaching is a veteran marine who served his country in battle before becoming a physicist. Others are musicians or artists in their spare time. My point is not to say: “Hey look we’re cool too!”, it’s the following: we also see science (in particular physics and math) education as problematic—but we work within the system to change the things that we disagree with for the greater good.
Now I have no idea why Dr. Tae left academia. I can imagine he just decided he wanted to do something else with his time and there is nothing wrong with this. But the idea that your story gives is that he left because he saw no way to change to system so why even bother trying? Not only is that totally inaccurate, but it’s a horrible message to send to people. Modern universities enthusiastically encourage the type of outside the box teaching that you talk about Dr. Tae using in your article. Especially an institute like Northwestern that emphasizes student/faculty interaction. But guess what: teaching science is @$#^% HARD! It takes long hours, lots of effort on the part of the instructor and student alike, and no success is guaranteed.
