Living Our Witness
Izzy Warning’s favorite season is fall, with the “opportunities for coziness,” crisp air and colorful leaves.
She and her husband, Jack, were married in December 2024 at St. Sebastian, Milwaukee, but they are looking for a new home parish in the Cedarburg/Grafton area because they recently moved.
Warning teaches AP biology, freshmen biology, and a religion elective for 11th and 12th graders called Faith and Science at Dominican High School, Whitefish Bay. She is in her tenth year after spending two years as a member of Creighton University’s Magis Catholic Teacher Corps.
Warning is currently reading “10-25: The Science of Motivating Young People” by David Yeager and says she is slowly making her way through “The Demon of Unrest” by Erik Larson.
What is bringing you joy right now?
Enjoying the first year of married life! It is so cool to experience everything from the mundane to the thrilling with my best friend, Jack. Also, successfully scraping wallpaper and repainting our new house!
Tell us about your family/family of origin.
I grew up in Wauwatosa and attended St. Sebastian School. My parents are from Milwaukee, and I have a ton of aunts, uncles and cousins, and my grandparents, who I am fortunate enough to see regularly.
Tell us why you love being Catholic.
I love the coherence of the Catholic faith. I love that I can live as a human being, eyes wide open to the natural reality that I can understand with my senses. At the same time, we maintain that our reasoning is limited and that all of reality is charged with a sacramentality that goes beyond any possible comprehension. I love that God is reaching out to every single person and inviting us to be in communion with him all the time. It means that reality is far deeper, richer and mysterious than I can fit into my brain, and that ultimately, I am constantly being invited into a life that can be ruled by love, not the limits of the material world. Even though I am imperfect in living this way, I sense this constant invitation in the midst of everyday life.
How does your faith inform how you live?
My faith fills me with optimism and a “confirmation bias” to seek the good. While I feel sad and disappointed at times by setbacks, I do have hope in the promise that God creates goodness out of nothing and that our God is a God of resurrection. From that perspective, I try to stay attuned to what “goodness” is emerging and how I can be part of bringing goodness.
Tell us about your Faith and Science class.
When I was an undergrad at Marquette, I majored in biochemistry and theology. I loved that I could go from a mind-blowing physical chemistry lecture to a class on Christology, which would open my mind and heart. I never felt that these majors were incompatible; to the contrary, it was thrilling to engage with “how” and “why” questions all at once. It is like peeling back different layers of reality.
A few years into teaching at Dominican, I learned about the Science and Religion Institute at Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute. I was able to attend a few seminars and meet incredible professors and high school teachers working on integrated science and religion curricula. This program is invaluable to me as I continue to develop this course.
It is a blessing to simultaneously teach students in both science and religion. I can say, “look how amazing all of these intricate systems are in your cells.” This is amazing order and complexity, and it is (to borrow words from Albert Einstein), “incomprehensible … that it is comprehensible.”
Yet, nothing in my biology textbook can reveal that our lives have meaning and purpose — science is limited, it cannot answer every question. These “why” questions exist, however, and pursuing truth is to seek God, who is the source of truth. I hope that students feel excited to relentlessly pursue truth, and I hope that they also see how rich reality actually is and that as humans, they have a special ability to seek that truth, and in doing so, respond to God our Creator.
What is a faith practice that is meaningful to you?
The Hail Mary and the Rosary as a whole are meaningful to me. Whenever I am fearful or uncertain, I recall Mary’s fiat and derive hope and courage from that.
Why is Catholic education important?
In Catholic schools, we honor the inherent dignity of every student, affirming that we are made for relationships with God and others in community. Our students possess the ability to reason, exercise free will, and love as God loves. Therefore, our educational approach aims not only to enhance students’ confidence in their reasoning abilities but also to cultivate a desire to will the good of others. This is true of every Catholic school, but I think we are particularly effective in achieving this at Dominican.
