This paper will consider how short-term contracts function as a technology for governing a new generation of teachers in Australia. It will proceed from Foucault's understanding that neoliberal modes of power seek to 'guide' or shape the conduct of the governed. In particular, the paper will consider how the short-term contracts implicate beginning teachers in their own self-government. How the beginning teacher therefore imagines a future within or outside contractual modes of governance will draw upon notions of precarity (Butler, 2004) and "Cruel Optimism" (Berlant, 2011). The paper will be anchored to the testimonies of over 10,000 beginning teachers.