I've spent a good amount of time tutoring elementary and high school students, and I've found that the current focus on metrics and testing really hamstrings the socratic method.
The problem is that the kids have been trained to never give wrong answers. They don't see a question as part of a dialogue, they see it as a quiz. So when they don't know the answer they either shut down completely, or take a guess that's unhelpful because there's no reasoning behind it that you can push further.
For it to work, the students really need to understand your expectations right from the jump. Once they get that you don't care whether answers are right or wrong, but only that they're thoughtful, you can do great things.
On a side note, I believe the "Socratic method" is often mislabeled, or at least misunderstood. It's not simply asking a series of leading questions. Broadly, Socrates didn't set out to teach people things he knew, but that they didn't know the things they thought they did. The assumption is that the student has a base of knowledge that the teacher is going to interrogate.
The problem is that the kids have been trained to never give wrong answers. They don't see a question as part of a dialogue, they see it as a quiz. So when they don't know the answer they either shut down completely, or take a guess that's unhelpful because there's no reasoning behind it that you can push further.
For it to work, the students really need to understand your expectations right from the jump. Once they get that you don't care whether answers are right or wrong, but only that they're thoughtful, you can do great things.
On a side note, I believe the "Socratic method" is often mislabeled, or at least misunderstood. It's not simply asking a series of leading questions. Broadly, Socrates didn't set out to teach people things he knew, but that they didn't know the things they thought they did. The assumption is that the student has a base of knowledge that the teacher is going to interrogate.