I'm guessing that most people get the critical thinking wrong about education in general because it doesn't happen as often as it should. Instead of being taught how to think (which is something I would hope would happen at home and in every day experience of life, too), students are being taught want to think. Like your Google Man who is a fountain of knowledge but has no clue what to do with it.

So, when the majority of the professors in most universities (I'll keep it to the US though it's got to happen elsewhere) are teaching their own findings and theories as truths, or primary and secondary teachers are teaching from carefully selected and approved texts so that students can pass the standardized one size fits all tests, those students who actually do use critical thinking skills end up castigated for questioning what's being taught or why it's being taught.