David
It is true that our house has been filled with music from the time our children were very young. It wasn’t planned that way – neither my wife nor I are particularly knowledgeable about music – but as I detail in Skylark, both Aliyah and Meera made their inclinations and desires known in all kinds of interesting ways, and we followed their lead. The same turned out to be true regarding nature education and wildlife studies for Aliyah, and gymnastics for Meera.

Before the age of 10 or so (which is the period upon which Skylark focuses), I don’t believe there is any area of study which, in isolation, is "important in an increasingly technological world" or for matter, in a non-technological one. What I do believe is important in those years is helping a child achieve the experience of self-mastery – regardless of subject area – whether it be in learning music or a foreign language, writing poetry, or hitting a baseball or doing a cartwheel on a balance beam. This involves a child developing a self-image of who she wants to "be", getting assistance in figuring out what it might take to get there (and, where appropriate, finding the right mentors and accessing information), putting in the time and effort needed to master the necessary skills, and having the experience of achievement. Having once had this experience of self-mastery, the child can carry this into whatever other endeavors come her way.

It is easy for parents to get hung up on content, whether it be "classical" or governed by their own sense of what children of the same age might be studying if they were in school. I see content, especially for children in their pre-teen years, as a playground – it is good to expose them to content which will reward serious effort (better the Odyssey than the Adventures of the Ketchup Sisters, better The Magic Flute than Britney Spears), but to worship at the altar of content is to miss the point. It is a false god, as anyone trying to remember what it is they have forgotten about the content of their own elementary education can readily attest.