After 24 years in the classroom, Fernando Fernandez Jr. was not looking for a credential. He was looking for something harder to name.
“I needed something to refresh my soul,” he said. “I needed something to prove that I could still learn.”
Now in his 25th year of teaching and serving as Head Director of Choirs for Flower Bluff ISD in Corpus Christi, Texas, Fernando came to Longy’s Online Master of Music in Music Education (MM/ME) program the way many veteran teachers do: quietly, a little skeptical, and squeezing study time around a full-time job. What he found surprised him.
Fernando’s introduction to Longy happened fast. He applied online, and within hours he heard back from Michael Gutierrez, Administrative Manager of Teacher Education. The next day, Assistant Dean Erin Zaffini texted him directly to ask if he had questions.
“I thought it was a scam at first,” Fernando admits. “I thought, they can’t be this good, they can’t be this friendly. This does not exist in the world. And thank God it does, because it’s that personal touch that led me to this program and that has just completely transformed my life for the better.”
That personal touch, he says, carried through the entire program. Weekly happy hours hosted by faculty like Dr. Zaffini and Dr. Sarah Fard gave students a place to vent, ask questions, and get to know their professors as people.
“They’re individuals, they’re souls. They’re not just academics trying to mold you. They’re trying to make you become a better human.”
A stepwise climb, not a cliff
Fernando had a real concern familiar to many returning students: he was the oldest in his cohort, and he had not been a student himself in a long time. What made the difference, he says, was how the online program is paced.
“Everything was a stepwise motion. You started off very basic instruction, very basic assignments. It gets your feet wet. And then the next week, the assignment got a little bit more intense.”
He credits Dr. Lorrie Heagy’s Principles of El Sistema course with setting the tone. “Her class was invaluable. Her insight and her knowledge really truly set you up for success through the program.”
His best advice for current and future MM/ME students? Work one week ahead. Start thinking about your final project in the first three weeks. And read every discussion board post, not just the required ones.
“That’s just extra insight. That’s just extra content. Use it while you can.”
Discovering he was already doing it
One of the biggest surprises of the program was learning that the philosophy at the heart of Longy’s teacher education was already alive in his classroom. Fernando had been practicing principles of El Sistema for years without the vocabulary to name it: community building, family gatherings around performances, outreach into the neighborhoods his students call home.
“I realized that I had been doing small pieces of it my whole career without ever knowing. Everything I’ve been doing has not just been some sort of crazy idea in my head. It’s based in a very sound and a very logical and a very, very well put together way of thinking.”
The program also changed how he paced his own teaching. “I hadn’t always quite thought about looking at it from my weakest student. Through this learning, I was able to stop and reemphasize my special needs students, my lower performing students, to make sure that I’m doing what I can as a teacher to slow down.”
A final project with legs
Fernando’s Masters final project was ambitious enough to be two projects in one. The first reimagined the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) through the lens of El Sistema, breaking the philosophy into ten tenets and weaving social change into the required state curriculum. The second was a survival guide for early-career music teachers covering everything undergrad never taught them, from uniform alterations to ordering music online to navigating a copy machine.
He has already submitted the project for publication, with one polite rejection in hand and several other avenues in motion.
“I am looking into some avenues as an independent publisher to try to share this with the world.”
Community you did not expect
Online programs have a reputation for feeling lonely. Fernando says Longy’s MM/ME is built to push against that, and the rest is up to the student.
“If you go into it looking for a friend, that’s the best way and the healthiest way to look for it. And always assume that somebody needs a friend.”
He still trades messages with classmates he has never met in person, some of whom he only saw for the first time at graduation.
“It makes the world a smaller place and a better place to know that you have people over the world that you can talk to and gain insight, and they can gain insight from you.”
His advice, in his own words
For anyone considering an MM/ME:
“Be not afraid.” Longy’s asynchronous format is designed for working teachers, and the stepwise pacing is built to ease you in.
“You’re never too old to start.” Fernando was the eldest in his cohort and calls the program the most transformative professional experience of his career.
“Make those connections.” Reach out to classmates. Read every board post. See them as friends you haven’t made yet.
And perhaps the shift that changed everything for him, long before Longy and deepened by it:
“The day that I stopped looking at teaching as an occupation and I started looking at teaching as a vocation. A good teacher is called. When we shift our thought from ‘this is an occupation, I’m doing this to collect a paycheck,’ to ‘I’ve been called to change somebody’s life, I’ve been called to save a life,’ I think that changes the whole dynamic as a teacher.”
Longy’s Online Master of Music in Music Education is designed for working teachers like Fernando. Classes are asynchronous, applications require no audition and no fee, and financial assistance is available. The fall application deadline is July 1, 2026.