The choice of verb is one key element: grow (transitive), as one grows a garden. The garden does all the actual physical (reflexive) growing, but, without a gardener, it grows not into a garden but into a wilderness. Just so do children grow into adults on their own, but into persons with guidance.
The goal of school in general, and English class in particular, is to teach the skills of complete personhood, including literacy and critical literacy, self-understanding, emotional and social literacy, critical thinking, and ethics.