Each year thousands of graduates in Australia take up their first position in schools, eager to teach students and determined to make a difference in their lives. They are overwhelmingly motivated by a desire to "do good" and "be good". Often they have been imagining "their" class and "their" teaching for years. In this article I report on a study of beginning teachers in Australian primary schools, and describe the ways in which the current neo-liberalist agenda in education in Australia dictates the English teaching they do. I discuss the implications of this for teacher autonomy and teacher retention.