Mona Lisa Smile Real Time Notes

• Wellesley College in 1954
• Kathryn Watson, Art history professor came from LA to East Coast.
• Came to make a difference
• Wellesley is steeped in tradition.
• looks for a place to live. Lots of rules. 
• Told by fellow teacher, Be careful, they can smell fear.
• Classroom is a small auditorium.
• All of the girls studied ahead and knew all of the answers leaving her nothing to teach. They thought that they had outsmarted her.
• One of her bosses had been watching the first class.
• Learns that she wasn't the first choice for the position.
• In a meeting at a very long table with her at one end and three of the higher ups at another. Lots of space in between. Her dissertation is being questioned, which really means that she is being questioned. She is told to have better discipline in her class.
• Later at home she learns that one of her housemates who is the school nurse is a lesbian. 
• There are claws under the white gloves--students, staff, parents and alumni.
• She changes the curriculum--outsmarts the students. She challenges them to think not just to regurgitate, to open themselves up to a new idea.
• Distribution of birth control by the school nurse is forbidden. It is still against the law to do so. The school nurse is let go.
• The students engage in some sort of strange games that look very medieval and are supposes to determine who will marry next. The already married girls play the game with a baby buggy.
• Italian teacher, Bill, gives Watson the advice that for a teacher the "trick to surviving is to never getting noticed".
• Meets up with Bill at the bar. Watson observes that there aren't many chances around here. Bill says, "depends on how well they like you in first place".
• Marriage lessons: "in a few years your sole responsibility will be caring for your husband.
• There are a lot of labels around here
• The girls are used to getting A's. Joan is upset that she received a C. Watson felt that she was generous with that C as Joan had been asked to say what she thought not to parrot what someone else thought.
• Girls don't have hopes and dreams for themselves. The purpose of a four year degree is to get married. Marriage is the goal, not education.
• Betty's wedding is a huge see and be seen affair--very society. 
• Watson challenges the girls by taking them to a studio in the village to look at a piece by Jackson Pollock. Their only assignment is to look  and consider. For this she is told to use less modern art. 
• Joan and Betty argue about Joan's application and acceptance to Yale law school. Betty doesn't look happily married.
• Watson regrets Paul's proposal. 
• Watson responds in class to the editorial written about her. She was very angry. By challenging them  and demanding excellence she didn't realize that she was disregarding the "roles they were born to fulfill".  Has a very heated argument with the dean, calls Wellesley a finishing school disguised as a college. Moves her rant to Bills class where she busts through the door saying that she thought that they would be turning out tomorrows leaders, not their husbands. 
• Joan elopes. Watson very upset that Joan not going to law school. Wants her to realize that she can do both. Joan challenges Watson to look past her perceived notions of right and wrong about Wellesley and their traditions to see that they are all not bad and that Joan is doing what she wants to do.
• alumni board meet with Dean to discuss whether or not to have Watson back. They decide that with stipulations she can be asked back.
• Discovers that Bill is a fake.
• Watson does not agree to return. 
• Girls each give her a Van Gogh paint by numbers picture to remember them by. This makes Watson question herself, but she decides that to change for others is to lie to yourself.
• Girls (Joan) viewed her as a women who lived by example and compelled others to look beyond.