When you walk into a school art room these days it does not look like what you remember. The New Art Class still has the smell of paint. Now you also see tablets charging next to the jars of brushes. The New Art Class has students editing videos and someone is testing a small 3D-printed model that started as a sketch just an hour earlier.

The New Art Class is not making an announcement about changing it is just changing slowly. For a time The New Art Class was all about the finished piece of art. You would make a landscape in watercolor or a shaded still life. There was a lot of pressure to get it right. Now in schools teachers are not as interested in the finished piece of art they want to know about the path The New Art Class students took to get there. They ask The New Art Class students what surprised them what did not work and what they would try again.

This small change is making a difference. The New Art Class students who used to get stuck on a page are now being told that mistakes are a part of The New Art Class assignment. In some classrooms The New Art Class sketchbooks are messy and layered full of taped fragments and notes to themselves. The New Art Class teachers talk about the process of making art as if it’s the art itself.

At the time The New Art Class is using more materials. The New Art Class includes photography, digital illustration, installation projects and performance pieces. Teenagers who already spend a lot of time making images for media are now being asked to think about why certain images work, who they influence and what stories they tell. The New Art Class is teaching literacy, which is the ability to understand an image as well as you understand a paragraph of writing.

In a world with many pictures this feels important for The New Art Class students to learn. It is not a fun extra thing it is a necessary skill.

The New Art Class is also trying to connect art to subjects. Schools that used to focus on science, technology, engineering and math now talk about science, technology, engineering, arts and math. In one school The New Art Class students were building sculptures to learn about physics. In another school The New Art Class students used data from climate reports to make infographics that also made a point about the environment. The art teacher and the science teacher worked together in the classroom. It did not feel like a project it felt like real work.

The way we think about culture is changing too. The New Art Class is not just focusing on art it is also looking at indigenous and folk traditions. The New Art Class students study Gond painting and contemporary installation art. They talk about the symbols in dot painting and then make their own maps of who they are. For some The New Art Class students this is the time they see their own heritage as important not just something decorative.

There is another issue that is coming up in The New Art Class: protection. When The New Art Class students put their work online or make portfolios they need to think about who owns the work. Who owns a design once it is posted online? What stops someone from copying it? There are platforms like ArtAttest by Lutinx that are trying to help The New Art Class students protect their work. Teachers are starting to talk about this in class just like they would talk about a sketching app. This shows that The New Art Class students are not just making art for fun they are also artists in a digital world.

Wellbeing is a part of The New Art Class too. Some art rooms are also spaces where The New Art Class students can relax. They do things like draw mandalas during exam season or look at one piece of art for ten minutes. The idea that art can help you feel calm is not seen as silly anymore.

The way we assess The New Art Class is changing too. Grades are still important. Now they also include written reflections or critiques from other students. It is not about making something perfect it is about being original and taking risks. The focus is on what The New Art Class students were trying to do not on how neat their work is.

All of these changes may not seem like a deal, on their own but together they add up to something bigger. The New Art Class is not a small part of the school day it is a space where The New Art Class students can try out ideas think about images and learn how to stand behind what they make.

As creativity becomes more important in the world The New Art Class may be more important than we thought. The art room, which can be messy and chaotic may be doing some important work.