There’s a lot that can be learned from Auburn senior pitcher Shelby Lowe.

Having tossed more than 450 strikeouts in her career while maintaining a 2.22 ERA, it’s likely the southpaw pitcher can teach one a thing or two about carving up batters.

Lowe can also offer a lesson in perseverance after having undergone multiple surgeries on her pitching arm during her time at Auburn. Up until Auburn’s series-clinching win over LSU on April 14, Lowe hadn’t pitched a complete game since her last surgery.

“It feels good to have confidence again,” Lowe said Monday night after pitching her second complete game of the season. “It’s a hard thing to earn back, so I’m working on it and earning it back.”

Take Lowe away from the softball field, and you’ll still find her teaching lessons.

A self-proclaimed “magnet to kids,” Lowe is an aspiring teacher and is currently helping teach an elementary class at Cary Woods Elementary School. There, she’s teaching lessons about the life cycle of a butterflies, the infamous “Sneaky E” and some math here and there.

And she’s good at it, too.

“They are a worm first. Then they’re a chrysalis, and then a butterfly,” recited Weslyn, who is one of Lowe’s kindergarten students at Cary Woods Elementary School.

Meanwhile, Rhett, also a kindergartener at Cary Woods, says Miss. Shelby taught him all about the “Sneaky E,” which refers to the silent letter ‘E’ that comes at the end of certain words.

“Like ‘take’ and ‘cake,’” Rhett explained between glances at the pitching circle, where Miss. Shelby toed the rubber.

With popcorn and Dippin’ Dots fueling the fire, excitement was bubbling over for Weslyn, Rhett and another handful of Lowe’s students, who spent Saturday afternoon running and jumping around the concourse of Jane B. Moore Field, where Auburn softball was celebrating “Shelby Lowe Day” — otherwise known as Lowe’s senior day.

“This has been a plan that we’ve put into place, Auburn encouraged it, like two and a half months ago — like in January,” said Meg Burns, a kindergarten teacher at Cary Woods and supervises Lowe’s internship. “And they have been excited since the first time it was mentioned.”

Throughout the season, Burns has showed the class videos of Lowe when she’s pitched for the Tigers.

“They just think it’s the coolest thing ever,” Burns said of Lowe’s students watching her on TV.

On Saturday, there was no screen needed to watch Lowe pitch for Auburn.

Instead, as Lowe was announced as the Tigers’ starting pitcher for Auburn’s series-opening game against Kentucky, she ran between two lines made up of her waist-high students, being sure to high-five each one.

“Great!,” announced Rhett when asked about the experience. “She’s a fast pitcher.”

The excitement of Lowe’s students, who came to Saturday’s game toting orange and blue shakers and handwritten signs, is a testament to the relationships she’s fostered with each of the students.

“She really loves the kids. She gets the curriculum done, but then she’ll also cut up with them and have fun and be silly, which is really important in kindergarten,” said Burns, who is finishing up her 24th year of teaching this year. “One of the biggest things in teaching is you have to get the kids to love you first before you can teach them so they respect you and she did that right off the bat and has had a lot of fun with them.”

Being a Division I athlete has forced Lowe’s internship experience to look a bit different, Burns says.

Because the internship requires that students log a certain number of days in the classroom, Lowe had to start her internship back in November to take into account some of the time she’d miss for softball.

“Her situation has been really unique because she’s a D1 athlete,” Burns said. “You know, she had to leave early to go to practice and workouts and traveling for games and everything.”

But Lowe has made it work — even when it’s required her to go to workouts on her own instead of with her teammates.

“I have a lot of people who work with me to be able to work around it,” Lowe said. “And I enjoy going to school every day, so I think it’s fun. I think it’s worth my time, so tired or not, I’m going to be there.”

After all, there’s teaching to be done and lessons to be learned.

And while Lowe has positioned herself to be the one doing the teaching, she’s learned a thing or two from her students.

“You really just learn that they’re going to love you regardless. They’re really looking for someone to love them and that’s what they need,” Lowe said. “They really just teach you to be a great person, honestly.”