This thread is rediculous: talk about self-serving biases. First, social work (when put in comparative perspective next to other things like philosophy, astrophysics, chess, etc) isn't very critical at all. All the tasks you (the social worker poster) mentioned are systematized. As long as one follows the procedures there are no hick-ups. In fact, social work and bureacracies are designed so that an individual doesn't have a lot of autonomy. I'm not saying you don't work hard, but when one follows guides and procedures one's not utilizing critical thinking skills. Second, a person involved in teaching mentioned teaching, how typical. But this depends: If one is teaching at the university level, and involved in research work on the side, then that is moving in the critical direction. But if one is teaching elementary or high school and just reiterating information from a text, essentially a mouthpiece of the textbook, this isn't critical thinking at all.
Incidentally, I've taken a wide range of subjects at university (especially in first year) including anthropology, environmental science, management, economics, philosophy, political science, music and one can think critically in any area although they are not designed to promote this. Instead undergrad programs are designed to train you to memorize substantive data and think a certain way: To frame issues by the current analytical frameworks and, as a result, they are very institutionalized. Even in philosophy, it is very institutionalized, because schools need a standard for evaluation. If everyone adopts their own ingenious theories there is no bases for evaluation. So at this level, it is institutionalized and standardized, however, in the upper years of undergrad and definately at the masters and phd level their is more room for exploring your own genius. Moreover, while every subject in undergrad is institutionalized, philosophy still offers the greatest potential for critical thinking when compared with more rigid programs like economics or chemistry or anthropology.