Mona Lisa Smile Movie Analysis

Mona Lisa Smile is a movie about an art history teacher named Kathrine Watson and her struggle to be accepted as a teacher at a very traditional, conservative school. The movie takes place in 1953 at Wellesley College. It is Watson’s first year as a teacher at Wellesley and on the very first day she quickly learns that all of her students have already learned all of the information in their textbook. She felt very discouraged by every student already knowing everything she has to teach; Watson then takes a new approach. She starts introducing modern art to her students. Her students aren’t very accepting of this interpretation of art; however, it promotes discussion of what art actually is. Throughout the school year Watson goes through many

She is a 30 year old graduate student that is an art history teacher. She is a very strong willed, and just wants to make a difference in her students’ lives. Watson is a free spirit and has a very unconventional teaching style compared to the standards of Wellesley College. Watson was working in an environment that was conservative and traditional; this was quite the opposite of her. She was rebellious in the eyes of her colleagues, and many did not understand why they allowed her to be a teacher at this school. She had a difficult time at first getting through to her students because of how society is during the time period of this movie. During the 50s, the role of a woman was a housewife. She didn’t want to conform to this idea and strongly believed that women should be able to have

The first strategy that Woolfolk talks about that Watson applied in her lessons is “value students- communicate caring” (Woolfolk 476). I felt like Watson constantly showed her students that she wanted them to be successful. She did many things to prove this. She got an application to Yale and helped Joan fill it out. She put in the extra effort to show her students that they can be something more than just a housewife. This turned out to be a very successful method. The second strategy that Woolfolk explains is the teacher is “stimulating creative thought” (Woolfolk 476). Watson used this strategy by showing her students abstract modern art and telling her students to “look beyond the paint.” She wanted them to find a deeper meaning to the art rather than just the physical characteristics of the art. This method also turned out to be relatively successful in motivating Watson’s students. The third strategy from Woolfolk Watson was using is the “teacher communicates importance of work” (Woolfolk 476). The most obvious example of this is when Watson informs Betty of all the work she missed after her wedding. She informed Betty that she would fail her if she did not do the work. Watson did this even though the school was very lenient when it came to a student getting married and missing classes. Watson was in the unpopular opinion, but she didn’t let that stop