Like many people, I’ve wasted many hours playing around on YouTube. Though my husband could watch Jeff Dunham clips every day and my daughter gets a kick out of baby animal videos (both can be entertaining, I will grant them that), my weakness is educational videos—the kind that are enlightening, entertaining, and moving. Those babies make me want to watch videos all day, sobbing or laughing or both the entire time.

Sir Ken Robinson is my favorite—though there are many TED talks, professional speaker clips, and other pioneer voices that provide the same humorous yet insightful commentary. Lately, however, I’ve stumbled upon Taylor Mali, and I am absolutely hooked.

The guy is a teacher, for one thing. Despite my acidic comments about the U.S. educational system itself, teachers are perhaps the people I respect the most on earth. From comments I’ve read by former students, it sounds like he’s made a difference in many people’s lives. But he’s not just one of those really fun/funny English teachers that make you wish that every single class is his (I’m talking to you, Mr. Husky, Ms. Ludlum, and Mrs. Hagan). He’s also an accomplished poet in a way that I and many other shy saplings will never be, as he can not only write the stuff but also perform it, “Def Poetry” fashion, in such a goose bump-inciting way that you would think that a “professional actor” were in front of you. Indeed, Mali is a voice actor, mostly for commercials, but he’s much better—even on grainy camera footage—than most Hollywood headliners that we have today.

If you haven’t watched one of Mali’s videos yet, you simply must. Now. His “What Teachers Make” will make you feel like you’re in the presence of a charismatic evangelist—except instead of hailing God and instilling fear, he’s hailing teachers and instilling inspiration. His “Impotence of Proofreading” will have you laughing hysterically, whether you’re a perfect punctuation princes or, like me, you really need to tweak your work. “On Girls Lending Pens” might send you down memory lane—I can remember toting at least twenty around with me sophomore year, for sure—and one of my absolute favorites, “I’ll Fight You for the Library,” truly distinguishes between the teachers who give a damn and the bureaucrats who certainly don’t. “Speak with Conviction” is something that you might want to listen to twice—and then pass along to your friends.