Have we lost our way?

Like all preservice teachers, the idea that middle school students cannot possibly listen to a forty-five minute lecture has been continually hammered into my head since my first day of class.  I would agree wholeheartedly that middle school students cannot listen to a traditional, overhead projector style fact filled lecture, but I don't think we should abandoned lecture entirely.  The modern interpretation of middle school education is more similar to elementary education then it is to high school and I don't know if that is the right approach.  I think that middle school should be a time to transition between the two opposing teaching styles.  I think that instead of emphasizing on activities and a hands on approaches to learning supplemented with lectures and presentations, I think that middle school teachers should be consciously aware of what their students are capable of learning and focus on teaching at the highest level possible.  Activities and hands on approaches should be used as aids, not as the focus of a lesson.  Activities can be used to illustrate points and to make connections to learning, but if the only focus of the lesson is the activity, valuable connections will be lost.  Limiting a lesson to ten minutes of teacher lecture is a slippery slope that new teachers should avoid, because it can seriously cripple a lesson.  The most important parts of activity driven lessons are the briefing and debriefing otherwise valuable learning and long hours of planning are completely wasted.