Yes, that's what most people think! This fear - that children won't learn unless forced - is one of the drivers of compulsory education. But if you think about it, how likely is it really that we humans would sit doing nothing indefinitely rather than being motivated by an instinct to learn about our world?
Nobody seriously worries that the average baby will prefer to sit and watch the world go by, and will never be bothered to crawl and walk in order to explore. Nobody worries that children will be too lazy to try to babble or talk if not forced to do so. Toddlers are full of curiosity, watching everything and asking a million questions.
Why do we expect that that curiosity will switch off when a child is four or five, so that we'll have to start making them learn the subjects we think are important? It's true that many schoolkids in their holidays and weekends and after-school hours appear uninterested in learning. But would they still behave that way if they hadn't been spending 30+ hours a week being told what to think about and how to use their time?
An interesting experiment is to take a child out of school and then not insist they do any specific learning, but instead just wait and watch. Some parents report a transformation in their children within just a few months. For others it can take longer, especially if the child hated school and thinks learning=school so they object strongly to anything educational.
One thing is certain: kids who have a choice won't happen to want to learn exactly the same topics as at school, at the same rate. Why would they? They may devote two years to learning Japanese, tinkering with engines and getting really good at electric guitar, while their parents fret over the total absence of visible learning about maths and history.
But someone who has had the chance to connect with their curiosity and individual interests is less likely to be afraid of those subjects than someone who has been forced to do them and therefore found them unpleasant. They won't necessarily object to the idea of doing them one day in the future, when the mood strikes them or when the need becomes apparent. And their education doesn't finish when they are 16 or 18. It's never too late to learn the subjects they haven't yet done - unless they have got hold of the idea that learning is unpleasant and cannot be done without a teacher.
There are some foods I prefer over others, but there's nothing I've vowed never to touch. The food I most dislike is liver, but I wouldn't say I hate it. I might even learn to like it if I discovered I needed to eat it. The reason I don't have a really powerful aversion to it is because no one has ever demanded I eat it. My father, on the other hand, had had food physically forced down his throat when he was a child. Fifty years later he still felt queasy at the sight of a whole range of foods including blueberry pie.