Translation help needed.
 

I need help with the following passage:

Context: A teacher has just received a disagreeable gift (a hat.) from her (elementary) students. Naturally, the students expect her to wear it. The following is a monologue:

教え子作ったプレゼント

これに応えずなんとする

今こそまっすぐ教師の道を

守は子供のその笑顔

Sentences in the above order, without punctuation marks, as written.

The sentences seem to have an unusual structure and hence I'm somewhat stumped over what the conditional '応えず' is supposed to refer to.

Is this an acceptable translation?
"A present made by my students...

How should I respond?

As a proper teacher...

The smiles of these children is something that should be protected."

OR

"This is a present made by my students.

As a proper teacher, how should I respond?

I should preserve the smiles of these children."

Did I miss anything important, or should I add anything or rephrase the sentences to sound more natural?

Also, does　"応える" have a meaning similar to　"答える", except that the former can be used for more "abstract" cases than the latter?

Thank you.

First of all, did it actually say 守は in the last line? I'm not saying it's incorrect but it's in an older style.

You didn't miss anything important. This writing is not prose. It's closer to "casual poetry" if the term makes any sense. It's written in the rhythmical 7-5-7-5 syllables as in haiku and tanka. This just flows so smooothly in the ear of a Japanese-speaker.

Regarding 応える, it means "to respond to an action". 答える is used differently; It means "to answer a question", as you know. The way you used the word "abstract" is really good.

これに応えずなんとする literally means "What would I do if I didn't respond to this?". What it's saying is that "I've got to respond in some way." 応えず, is a literary way of saying 応えないで.

Wow, that was quick. Thanks.

I'd made a minor mistake when typing; it's written as "守るは" in the original source. Guess I hit "space" and "enter" too quickly without checking what IME did to them.

That still doesn't affect the pronunciation though. Does it sound archaic because of the missing の for normalization purposes, with the contemporary form being "守るのは"?

It shouldn't affect the meaning right?

Thanks for the clarification on "これに応えずなんとする". I always have problems with 'multiple' negatives, especially when combined with unfamiliar verb conjugations.

Any suggestions on how to make my translation flow... smoother? Should I reorder the whole thing for clarity, or is it a better idea to stick to the original sentence order? I seem to have problems with "今こそまっすぐ教師の道を 守は子供のその笑顔", as it sounds awkward in English. (even after massacring "まっすぐ教師の道" into "As a proper teacher".)

Also, how does "応える" compare with　"返事する"? Does the latter require an overt/direct action to be first performed on the respondee, without the action being necessarily a question?

Right, it wouldn't affect the meaning.

守るは means 守るべきは or 守るべきものは. = "To be preserved are ~~"
守るのは is also grammatically correct but it sounds too colloquial to go with this passage.

To say 守るは～～～ is perfectly normal. Besides, adding letters to it would destroy the 7-5 syllable distribution.

When I stated that 守は sounded old, I didn't mean to say it was archaic. I said so because it reminded me of my grandparents writing the dictionary forms of verbs without using any kana every once in a while. Sorry if I confused you.

Not that I'm a translator, I've always believed that translation is an art. By that, I mean that translators would do whatever it takes to make their translations sound good to the readers of the translations. 99.99% of these readers will never read the original.

What sounds good to English-readers, you already know better than I. I can assure you, though, that most Japanese-readers would not take the phrase 今こそまっすぐ教師の道を literally in the first place. We won't picture a teacher walking straight on Teacher Road. We would take the phrase to mean "I've got to act like a real teacher now."

応える has a much broader meaning than 答える or 返事する because the action of 応える can be either verbal or non-verbal. In contrast, 答える or 返事する is always verbal. There has to be a question asked first for you to 答える or 返事する to it.

In this passage's case, the students' action is giving the teacher a hat, which is non-verbal. The teacher is now determined to wear the hat in front of the students because that's what a good teacher is supposed to do, letting the kids have a kick out of it. Even though there would have to be many a word exchanged between the two parties, both actions are basically non-verbal.

Ah, I see. Thanks.

Edit: Is "頭コゲてる" the same as "頭焦げてる", and does it mean "to have a headache?"

Full sentence (as written): "あはは。やだなあ、おねーちゃん、頭コゲててかっこ� �いよ。"

*わるい. for some reason it won't display properly. Is "disgusting/uncool" supposed to be profanity or something?

Context: Sibling rivalry. The younger sister gets scolded by the elder one, with the former (the younger one) 'retaliating' verbally afterwards. ('though the elder sister did mean well.)