[woodandsteel]

What if Plato thought that (at least part of) the truth was that it was more beneficial for people to think and seek than to be told the pre-canned truth?

No, what happens through this process is the student gets an idea in their head and thinks it is correct. The only way to check it out is for the student to state it in a prepositional form to some other smart philosophers and see if they punch any holes in it. But I guess you don't want them to do that because you sense, I would say that correctly, that many Plato's ideas couldn't stand up to that sort of critical scrutiny.

By the way, I do think Plato's dialogues are well-worth reading, it's just that I think many of his ideas were mistaken.