Please wait
Loading homework…
Program
Shooting Challenge
Focus areas
Overview
Students use Don Meyer’s Foxhole Test as a metaphor for trust, courage, responsibility, selflessness, and dependability under pressure. The reading asks students to imagine a high-stakes situation where they must choose the people they would trust at their back, left, and right. The point is not to glorify war; it is to strip away popularity, cliques, and surface-level friendships so students can think honestly about character. Strong teammates are the people who stay composed, protect others, accept responsibility, learn from mistakes, and can be counted on when circumstances are difficult. Students also turn the test inward by asking whether their own habits and character would make others want them beside them when pressure is high.
Action plan
1. Read the foxhole scenario and identify why trust becomes more important when pressure is high. 2. Study the three positions in Don Meyer’s Foxhole Test: back, left, and right, and note the qualities connected to each position. 3. Separate friendship and popularity from dependability: explain why the person you like most is not automatically the person you would trust most under pressure. 4. Complete the questions assigned through the existing grade-bucket system based on the student’s actual grade. 5. Identify the qualities you would look for in someone protecting your back: courage, composure, honesty, toughness, responsibility, selflessness, or another trait supported by the reading. 6. Turn the test inward. List two qualities you already demonstrate that would make others trust you and one behavior you need to improve. 7. Think of a real high-pressure situation from sports, school, family, work, or friendship. Explain what dependable behavior looked like—or should have looked like—in that moment. 8. Finish the reflection: 'People can trust me under pressure when I \\\\\\_. I can become more dependable by _\\\\\\.'
Coaching lens
The heart of this assignment is trust revealed by pressure. It is easy to appear dependable when circumstances are comfortable; the deeper test is what a person does when fear, stress, disappointment, or mistakes enter the situation. Don Meyer’s Foxhole Test gives students a vivid way to separate popularity from character by asking whom they would trust in positions where their safety depended on that person. The lesson should remain clearly metaphorical and should not romanticize combat. Its educational value comes from identifying qualities such as courage, integrity, accountability, selflessness, composure, and loyalty, and then asking students to evaluate those same qualities in themselves. The most important outcome is not choosing names for a foxhole—it is deciding what behaviors would make others trust you enough to choose you.