Has forcing education on children largely prevented them from wanting to learn?

Yes, if it is done in a rote none dynamic fashion. Debates and audio visuals catch interest and stimulate students, Too much stress on testing and threats of failure are other elements which detract from learning

You have established the conundrum of the ages: If we wait for someone to be motivated to learn, we will have an ignorant populace. If we force learning upon them, they will hate it. The middle ground is to set up required bodies of knowledge and have a populace as wise as your grandfather who makes it all meaningful to his own family. You are fortunate to have had the education as well as later motivation which made it all relevant. Without the matrix you learned in school, there would have been nothing in your head to make relevant. Love it or hate it, in the end, you learned in your own manner and are thriving for it.

Yes. There are alot of expectations from teachers and parents, and pressure from friends and other competitors. This results in fear of failure in a culture that exalts achievement rather than good character. This, in turn results in dispising education. Education was never supposed to be competition.

It's a good question. I think a lot of kids probably are turned off from learning because of the way things are taught. I don't think it's necessarily that they are being forced, though a combination of being forced, and being taught in a disjointed, uninteresting way can kill even the most curious kid's interest. I've always loved learning, but have never liked school. I didn't care about my homework in high school, while at the same was a member of the Science Club, Quiz Bowl, etc. I think if what students were allowed to take were more open-ended, and things were taught in a more interesting way rather than just regurgitating facts from a textbook, kids would be more interested.

Conundrum or no, the truth is juvenile minds need guidance. The term forced is misused in that one cannot be forced to learn therefore the question in it's current form is biased. Simple answer would be no and you are correct. However, a better question is "do children need guidance from experienced mature adults?" Yes they do without that guidance children would eat only deserts for breakfast lunch and dinner and they would learn only what they feel they need to serve their current existence. Problem is they lack vision, how will a young person know what tools they will need to prepare them for the larger share of their existence i.e. 20-75 years of age? It is unreasonable to expect someone with no experience to know this answer. The paradox is that when you are able to absorb the most information is when you have the least amount of judgment and vision. Hence the proverb "Youth is wasted on the young." You may have found that your experience is anecdotal in that you have aged, that may be why you have this hunger. Teachers need to be passionate about their curriculum to motivate the young to learn. Just having a job seems to be the current motivation in too many cases. It has become a bureaucratic hiding place for those who want to cruise through their summers. Children need guidance they may not want, or so it seems but............

Humans never respond good to force in the long run.