Socratic Dialogue a cheat to thinking?

Today in class we talked about how the Socratic Method is employed to make two people to arrive at the same conclusion. In Ishmael we see the gorilla the teachers and the narrator the student engage in a Socratic dialogue to help understand the world. The problem I have with the Socratic Method is that if you ask leading question that are directed to teach the student what the teacher knows how can the student develop into what his own thoughts are. Ishmael clearly wants the narrator to realize that humans are using up too much of the world and are not putting back. We see that there is a lack of opportunity for the narrator to think for himself he olny finds answers to what he was being asked but never thinks to be different.